Peter Obi urges Ondo electorate to resist vote trading

Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 elections, has cautioned Ondo voters of potential “vote buying and selling” in the Saturday’s governorship election, urging them to shun such acts.

Obi, who spoke at the LP governorship campaign rally in Akure, Ondo State capital, on Monday expressed worries over the state of democracy in Nigeria, lamenting that it’s become “transitional politics”.

“Ondo electorate should shun vote buying and selling because it’s money that they’ve stolen that they are using to buy them. We must resist them,” Obi said.

The former Anambra state governor said the party is continually campaigning in order to build a new Nigeria where rights and privileges of all citizens are respected and votes buying are eschewed.

He explained that by jettisoning vote trading, the electorate are on the path of resuscitating the country’s “suffering” democracy.

“We are here for the campaign of the gubernatorial election coming up on Saturday. We know democracy is suffering in Nigeria; we know they’ve turned democracy into transitional politics, but we still insist that we continue to campaign and tell Nigerians that this is time to start building a new Nigeria.

“A Nigeria where a child of nobody is somebody, a Nigeria where there will be equal opportunity, a Nigeria where we put people out of poverty, a Nigeria where our children will be in school, where our hospitals will work.

“We don’t want people to give us money that they’ve stolen from us, and thereafter, they continue to steal more. We want to stop the stealing and start the rebuilding; we want to stop the destroying and start the rebuilding; we want to move this country from consumption to production so we can create jobs. That’s why we are here campaigning,” Obi said.

The governorship poll, scheduled for Saturday, November 16, 2024 is expected to be among 17 political parties with the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Lucky Aiyedatiwa and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Agboola Ajayi, being the leading figures.