• Ticket with Obi equals credibility, capacity, Kwankwaso claims

The Minister of Works, David Umahi, at the weekend, said that the South-East must know that votes from the zone alone cannot make the Presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi, win the presidential election. He therefore pleaded with the people to vote for President Bola Tinubu in 2027.

Speaking with journalists in Okigwe, Imo State, after inspecting the 65-kilometre Afikpo-Uturu-Okigwe federal road project, being executed under the Federal Government’s tax-credit scheme with Dangote Industries Limited as sponsor and Hi-Tech Construction as contractor, Umahi noted that Tinubu has the support from other zones, which placed him far above other contestants, pleading with people not to vote for Obi to avoid repeating the mistake of 2023.

Umahi said that the region needs to appreciate the President by voting for massive infrastructure in the area.

“We need to stand up for the President; we need to stand up for this champion; we need to stand up for this man who says Nigeria belongs to all of us, that the South-East is part of Nigeria.

“We have to be strategic. And for those who misunderstand us, Obi is my friend and my colleague. We have been governors; he might be a senior one, but governor is governor, and we also contested the presidential election together. He didn’t get; I didn’t get.

“I am happy for the President I serve now that got it. And automatically, because of what he is doing all over the country, I continue to say to the people of the South-East, I am on the ballot.

Meanwhile, the NDC vice-presidential candidate, Rabiu Kwankwaso, has said that the Obi-Kwankwaso ticket is unbeatable in terms of credibility and capacity.

Kwankwaso noted this while featuring on the News Agency of Nigeria Personality Interview Series yesterday in Abuja.

According to him, the combination of Obi and himself is capable of defeating any other contender in the 2027 presidential election.

The former governor said the decision for both of them to come together was to produce a balanced ticket that would unite Nigerians across regional and religious divides.

He said the ticket combined Obi’s strong support in the South and his political influence in the North to create a broad national political platform.

“Nobody, no ticket, can beat our own in terms of credibility, capacity and, of course, love for the country.

“Even in terms of empathy for the poor who are suffering across the country today, no other contender can match us,” he said.

Kwankwaso said his experience from the 2023 election had also helped him to understand the former Anambra governor better and had convinced him that both of them could work together.