In order to guarantee the success 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.
When speaking to the Igbo community in the state on Monday, Ortom, a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who is running for senate in the Benue North-West constituency, expressed his support for the former governor of Anambra State.
In his address to the crowd, he stated that they have the population and that they should praise God for “what is unfolding,” even as he portrayed Obi as a species that is not restricted by ethnicity.
After months of refusing to support the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, whose emergence in May 2022 was considered by numerous high-ranking party members as unfair, the Governor had on January supported Peter Obi of the Labour party.
READ ALSO: ADC Endorses Peter Obi For President
“For me, it’s not even that I’m contesting an election. Yes, the form was bought for me by the people of Benue State. I’ve gone round; they have accepted that they will vote [for] me.”
“But if I’m to sacrifice my senatorial ambition for Peter Obi to win, so shall it be,” he said to loud cheers from the crowd.
“I know that if [any group of] people are connected in this world, they are the Igbo. This is the opportunity you have to say that an Igbo man from the South-East is president.”
“So, let us not miss this opportunity that God himself is providing. The youth have told me, my own people have told me – stakeholders here, traditional rulers, party people across party lines. Obi’s matter is not about APC or PDP or SDP or any other party. It’s about Nigeria.”
“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.”
