Peter Obi Attacks Amaechi Over 2023 Presidency Comments

Former Anambra state governor Peter Obi has said Nigeria’s minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, is not in any position to speak for the people of the southeastern part of the country.

Concise News reports that Obi, who ran as a vice-presidential candidate on the platform of PDP in the country’s last general election, was reacting to Amaechi’s remark that the Southeast, the region housing the Igbo, stood no chance of producing Nigeria’s next president in 2023.

The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) got low number of votes in the region during the 2019 presidential election and Amaechi said it was clearly a deliberate action against the party.

“For people like us in the APC, if the Igbo had come and voted Buhari, they would boldly tell Mr President and the National Chairman of the party that presidency should go the Southeast since the South-south; South-west and North-west have produced president. What argument would the Southeast come up with now to convince anybody that they deserve the slot for 2023 president?” Amaechi had said in an interview with the Sun.

But Obi, who spoke with newsmen on Monday in Port Harcourt after a lecture/book presentation in honour of Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike, wondered why Amaechi, who is not from the Southeast, wrote off the chances of the region.

“Amaechi is not from the Southeast, so he cannot speak for us,” Obi said.

“He is not in any position to make such statements because even he that is in APC; he did not contribute anything to the success of that election.

“He did not even achieve anything in his own state. Those of us from the Southeast who are from the PDP contributed to the success of our party.”

He added: “For example, PDP in my state got 95 per cent. They (APC) didn’t even get 25 per cent in Rivers State. So he is not competent to speak on the Presidency in 2023.”