Labour Party (LP), yesterday, grounded business activities in Owerri, Imo State, as most traders and artisans thronged the Kanu Nwankwo Sports Stadium for the presidential rally of Peter Obi and his deputy,Yusuf Datti Ahmed.

The mammoth crowd had waited patiently until Obi, who trekked from Imo State University (IMSU) junction, where he alighted with cheers from his teeming supporters, arrived the stadium.

Obi, in his speech, promised to take back Nigeria and hand it over to the youths, prioritise education and end incessant strikes in public universities. He also reiterated his stance on re-working the economy to boost local production for exports and not the import dependent and consumer nation it is.

He said under his reign Imo State would become a great palm oil exporter in Nigeria.

“One thing I will assure you the students, professor Datti and I would take education seriously; no more strikes, we will sit down and negotiate with lecturers. Education is serious to us, you can’t differentiate a prosperous nation from education.

“I and Datti, go and check our track records, we are not here for fake promises, we want to take back Nigeria and give it back to the youths and women. We would invest in education and health.

“We assure Imo people we would come back to Imo, any programme we are doing, we would do it from here. Imo government receives statutory allocation from Abuja, N70 to N80 billion, some even receive more than that from the Federal Government.”

Obi said Imo State has great potential for exports of both crude oil and palm oil and that his government would unlock these resources to create jobs for youths of the state.

“We will go back to agriculture, our people can no longer be hungry.”

He also said his administration would no longer condone stealing of government funds.

“My deputy was a senator, he did not steal money, go and verify; that is why we are tired of those people in government stealing money. If you find out that I allocated a piece of land to myself or wife, I will stop running, I don’t run contract,” Obi assured.

On the insecurity situation in the state, he said: “I will stop insecurity, vote for our candidates in all the positions, we would help repair the state and end insecurity.” (Text, excluding headline: Daily Sun)

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