In order to guarantee the victory of the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom says he is willing to give up his desire to run for the Senate in this Saturday’s elections for the National Assembly.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Ortom is running for the Benue North-West senate seat.
After months of refusing to back Atiku Abubakar, the PDP presidential candidate, whose emergence in May 2022 was regarded by numerous high-ranking party members as unfair, he finally endorsed Obi in January.
While speaking to members of the Igbo community in the state on Monday, the governor of Benue reaffirmed his support for the former governor of Anambra State.
“For me, the issue isn’t even that I’m running for office. Yes, the citizens of Benue State purchased the form for me. I’ve visited them, and they have agreed to vote for me,” he stated.
I am aware that the Igbo are the most interconnected people in the world, he continued. This is your chance to claim that the president is an Igbo man from the South-East.
Ortom identified with those who believed in the unity of Nigeria and working together, saying it was for this reason that he accommodates everybody.
“Then let’s not waste this chance that God himself is giving us. Young people, members of my own community, traditional leaders, and party members from different parties have all told me this. Obi’s situation has nothing to do with the APC, PDP, SDP, or any other party. It concerns Nigeria.
He described Obi as a species that is not bound by ethnicity.
“That is why when I hear some prominent Igbo personalities castigating Peter Obi for contesting the election – is it not you people that have been saying you have been marginalised since after the war?
“The opportunity has come today and you’re still complaining. What do you want?! What are you looking for?
“The whole country – North, South, East, and West – are saying Peter Obi, and you hear some people say, ‘We don’t want it.’ Haba! Those people should be outcasts.”
