Africa
PROFESSOR Pat Utomi, a leader in the Labour Party (LP) has explained the benefits of the tour of Europe and the United States of America by the party’s presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi for political sensitization.
Utomi explained the points Sunday night as he featured on the Channels TV Sunday Politics.
The professor and media professional joined the discussion from the US where he had been touring with Obi.
Talking in futuristic terms like he was quite sure his party would win the election, he explained that no reasonable people would vie for leadership, especially one that would face the daunting task of repairing and rebuilding a collapsed country, and wait until they get to power before preparing for the task ahead.
He, therefore, noted that Obi needs the intellectual base and financial support of diaspora Nigerians to rebuild the country while in power.
He drew the inference from India and its revival from a collapse and said that apart from the UN-related intergovernmental economic and financial organisations, it was the Non-Resident Indians (NRI) that pulled resources together to revive the country and put it back to sound economic footing.
The politician also said that when the time comes, Obi, as the president of Nigeria would need such intervention from Nigerians abroad who have the record of repatriating billion of dollars back home every year.
Citing another instance of the clout of the enlightened disaporans, he said that when he was speaking on the platform, Obi was holding a meeting under the same roof with over 1,500 Nigerian students from several universities in the US.
The academic sounded quite sure that such people who are well informed will be the ones to influence their family members and friends way back home to vote for the right candidate that would lift Nigeria from its comatose state.
Asked to react to the news circulating in social media that attendees of some of the events to host Obi in the US are meant to pay as much as $250, he said his LP and Obi are just invited to attend and they are not the organisers and would not know precisely how the hosts or organisers handle the hosting.
According to him, in the US, people that attend events where they would have entertainment pay some stipends to cover the costs of such hosting such as tea, breakfast, or dinner.
Utomi further said that his party has not breached any rule about party funding since it has not commenced campaigns, and also questioned why Nigerians in the diaspora who have been denied the right to vote would also be shut out from sending fund to assist their chosen candidate.
He lamented that the political class who are afraid that the informed diaspora population may vote against them have refused to include such citizens from voting even when many African countries operate such laws. (Text excluding headline from AfricaChinapresscentre.org)
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Tags: Labour Party (LP) Pat Utomi
