The director general of the Buhari Campaign Organisation (BCO), Mr. Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi and the vice presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) have offered diverse points of view to the 2019 general elections which kick off with the presidential election on February 16.
Speaking in Ilorin, Kwara State at the inauguration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) ward canvassers, coordinators and secretaries called “victory army” across all the wards in the state ahead of the election, Amaechi said the contest will be between the rich and the poor in Kwara.
The victory army is made up of 193 ward co-coordinators, 193 ward secretaries, 193 ward women leaders and 193 ward youth leaders.
The BCO director general who is also the minister of transportation added that that the rich and thieves had ganged up against the APC-led government in the country and urged Nigerians to vote President Muhammadu Buhari for a second term in office and all other APC candidates nationwide so as to move the nation forward.
“This election is between the rich and the poor. Now the poor have realized that they are tired. If at the end of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government we had $58 billion, where is the money now? How much did state governments collect? How much did the Federal Government collect? What did they do with the money?
“We are gathered here today to peacefully take over power from the rich and hand over to the poor in Kwara State.
“That is what APC stands for. We join the poor to say we must take power from the rich. We join the poor to say ‘enough is enough.’
“The elite and the thieves have ganged-up against APC. But they don’t have the power because they don’t have the number. The number is with the poor and the poor must rise to vote on that day”.
“When I was a student at the University of Port Harcourt I predicted that one day the poor will rise. It will get to a point when the poor will begin to eat big men. What you are seeing in Kwara is a modern Tunisia.
“It was a poor man that started the Arab Spring in Tunisia. Today Kwara is leading the revolution to change Nigeria. Power must return to the poor. One problem we all have is that even we the poor are being deceived by them.
“Big men are in all the parties o! The difference between other parties and ours is that the big men in our party are all progressives. Other parties don’t care; they want to even collect what the poor is eating from them.”
But Obi looked at the exercise from a different perspective saying the election is all about the future of Nigerians.
Speaking in Kano State at the PDP South Senatorial rally, the PDP vice presidential candidate called on Nigerians to see the February 2019 general elections as decisive about the future and economic progress of Nigeria and not about the usual casting of votes because of vested interests.
Obi said for three years since 2015, the foundation of Nigeria had come under serious threats due to incompetent governance, inadequate attention to the economy which has spiraled into unprecedented unemployment, inflation, economic hardship and mistaken outspokenness on corruption for real policies that will make corruption unattractive.
He said the only way to stop what he described as “the backward movement of the country,” was by sending those that had failed to improve their lives out of power through the ballots.
“When I became the governor of Anambra State, I did not complain about what I met on the ground. God, I believe, gave us eyes in the front to look forward and not backwards. This does not mean that we should not take note of the past in order to build a great future, but the case of failing to solve even one of Nigerians’ many problems and to perpetually resort to blame game is a sign of incompetence to govern.
“What Nigerians should do is to vote in Atiku/Obi for their proven track records of successes in employment generation, wealth creation and consensus building among Nigerians,” he said
He said the Atiku/Obi government would create jobs, secure and unify the country.
