Presidential Candidate of Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi, has described Nigeria as a country that was needlessly ran down through cumulative effects of bad governance. He says it could only be salvaged through collective efforts. Obi spoke on Friday to airport correspondents at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos.

While answering questions, he said he just returned to Nigeria from the USA, where he had gone for two-day critical meetings all geared towards seeking solutions to the many problems facing Nigeria.

Describing the major problem facing the country as economics, Obi said that however advanced a country was, once the economy failed to the point of engendering massive unemployment, hopelessness, and hunger caused by uncontrollable food inflation as Nigeria was presently witnessing, such a country would doubtless witness massive crimes and criminalities. “This is what we are suffering today in Nigeria,” Obi said while assuring that his government would reverse the trend through a cocktail of measures, including reducing the cost of governance, improving production and reducing endemic corruption.

On his preparedness to restore the country, Obi said he was perhaps the most prepared because of his deep and sustained interest in the progress of the country as well as his experience in the management of men and resources. “You may wish to verify from all the corporations and institutions I have managed, including Securities and Exchange Commission and Anambra State,” he said.

Obi, who described his trip as “worthwhile”, said he was encouraged by not just Nigerians, but Africans who feel that after Nigerians would have successfully taken back their country in February 2023, that it would encourage other African countries that are experiencing bad leadership to do the same without recourse to the destructiveness of war.

Obi also took the opportunity to condemn the killing of the Labour Party Women Leader in Kaduna State, Mrs Victoria Chimex, saying: “Though I had already done so, but it is still okay to take this opportunity to do so again. I therefore call on Nigerians to join hands together with me to build a country where security will be top notch. Where Nigerians will love one another and the country above all.”