Peter Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, was praised as one of the best presidential contenders for the general elections of 2023 by Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom on Tuesday.
When Obi visited Ortom in Makurdi, the state capital, to show his solidarity for the flood victims in the North-Central state, Ortom made this statement.
The governor claimed that Obi, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, has the power to free Nigeria from its economic and security problems.
“If Nigeria needs to make a choice, you are one of the finest candidates that we have in this country. In terms of education, in terms of character, in terms of performance, in terms of reaching out, in terms of being a pan-Nigerian, in terms of industrialisation, passion to ensure that our country is liberated from where we are; out of insecurity to security, and out of economic woes to economic vibrancy and out of lack to adequate social life, you have the capacity to make things work,” Ortom said.
Ortom, who is a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party advised that party or ethnicity should not be the yardstick in the selection of the country’s next president in February 2023 election, but the capacity of a candidate to deliver Nigeria from “the mess”.
“And Peter Obi from your antecedents, you have the capacity. If I were God, I would have said everything but I am not God,” the Benue State governor said.
Nobody or any structure, according to Ortom, can prevent the future president of Nigeria from being chosen by God.
Ortom specifically asked the front-runners for president to unite and settle on a candidate.
“If I were not in PDP, Peter Obi would have been my candidate but I am in PDP, that is my handicap but my prayers are with you,” he told the LP presidential candidate..
Earlier, Obi stated that the goal of his “deal” with several resentful PDP governors, including Ortom, is to make Nigeria a better place.