Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has said he will dialogue with members of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and apologize to EndSARS protesters if elected Nigeria’s president in 2023.
The LP candidate who said this during an interview with Daily Trust in Abuja noted that dialoguing with aggrieved groups, including IPOB, is one of the best ways to restore peace to the country.
IPOB is a Biafra separatist group founded by detained British-Nigerian, Nnamdi Kanu.
The group proscribed in 2017 has been linked with the unrest in the South East region of Nigeria.
On how he will handle the group if elected, Obi said he will govern by consensus and ensure all parts of the country are fairly treated.
“I have said it times without number, Nigeria does not have more agitation than Brazil, if you want I will show you countries that have had agitations in the past, whether it is Brazil, Mexico, whether it is this.
“In our South East, it is a simple thing, I will dialogue, I will discuss, it is a democracy, and in a democracy, you govern by consensus. If anybody says he is not happy, you call him and you sit him down and discuss with him.
“People agitate in my house, my wife, my children. If you say to me you have lived with your wife all through and you people have never quarreled, then you are not married. You disagree and settle it – that is agitation.
“I will govern by listening to the people. I will visit every state in Nigeria. We have a huge land in the North that if properly invested and cultivated, will change Nigeria. The more I pull people out of poverty, the more I reduce agitation, the more I reduce criminality. What you are seeing in Nigeria today is a cumulative effect of leadership failure over the years and all I want to do is to be seen to be that man who changed this country called Nigeria,” the former Anambra governor said.
On the EndSARS protests, the LP candidate said he disliked how people were treated during the protests.
“I don’t like the way people were treated during the EndSARS, I will apologise. We must have a country of healing and love, that is what leadership in a democracy is.
“I am going to meet people in the north, I am going to meet people everywhere and say come, let’s be a family. I want Nigerians to be proud that they are Nigerians. What we have now is we have a country called Nigeria but we don’t have Nigerians. I want to bring back Nigerians.”
