DIRAN Onifade, spokesperson for the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr Peter Obi, yesterday, described comments ascribed to Anambra businessman, Arthur Eze, about the LP candidate as unfortunate but not unexpected.
Eze had condemned Obi’s ambition of becoming Nigeria’s next president after President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023.
He said this during the 2022 Ofala festival of Igwe Robert Eze, the traditional ruler of Ukpo in Dunukofia local government area of the State.
The businessman noted that he advised Obi to wait for next time after, however, listening to him list the number of states he thought he would win.
Eze said: “I warned Peter Obi to withdraw from this race but he would not listen. I told him plainly that I am not part of his plans. I told him to drop his ambition, and wait for next time.
“When he told me about his ambition, I asked him the states he thinks he can win in the west and in the north – he told me; but I was not convinced. I told him he cannot win; so that he would not waste his time and money.”
Obi’s camp responds
But Onifade, in a chat with Vanguard, was responding to Eze’s call on Obi to jettison his Presidential ambition because Ndigbo had other plans for now and in the future.
Onifade, who made it clear that he was expressing his personal opinion on the subject, said: “It is the influence of people like that that we want to take our politics away from.”
He said: “He is part of the establishment and structure that young Nigerians want to take our country back from.
“When we take power from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the All Progressives Congress, APC, the likes of Arthur Eze will no longer wield the kind of influence they enjoy today.
“You don’t expect them to take this lying down. Our candidate and our campaign remain focused on the task ahead which is to take back our country, rebuild it to make it take its proper place in the comity of nations.”
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