2023: Group Drums Support For Peter Obi, Says PDP, APC ‘Anti-South East’

The Eastern Union is mobilizing votes for Mr Peter Obi, Labour Party’s presidential candidate, because of equity and competence, according to Hon Charles Anike, the national president of the body.

Hon Anike told THE WHISTLER in Enugu on Tuesday that Labour Party had by choosing Obi as its presidential standard-bearer proven to Nigerians that it is a party for ‘the ordinary man and Nigerian masses’.

He said the contest for the 2023 presidential election had presented the opportunities for ‘Nigerian masses from all the tribes and religions to look through the histories, capacities, abilities, fitness and pedigrees of various presidential candidates’ to choose from.

He described the outcome of the primaries of both the PDP and APC as anti-South East. In his words, “The outcome of the PDP and APC primaries did not come to us as a surprise, rather the outcome reaffirmed our earlier concerns that the North is not sincere and not willing to allow power to rotate to the South.

“When the northern PDP elements began to play smart with zoning, we knew they were up to something funny; until they finally pretended to throw the contest open to all the zones.

“Recall that in 2019, no southerner contested the PDP presidential primary held in Port Harcourt, basically with the belief on the zoning arrangement of the party. This was why all the southern political leaders threw their weight behind Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.

“When it was the time for the North to reciprocate same, they could not control their insatiable quest for power. The outcome of this resulted in the gang-up against the South-East.

“The APC was not in any way different, except that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu proved the strength of money in the Nigerian politics. That was why he was able to abort the coup plot of Buhari and his APC national chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, who wanted to impose Sen Ahmed Lawal to maintain the Fulani leadership of the country.

“The position of the Eastern Union, therefore, is to seriously mobilize our people in the entire South-East, South-South zones and across the country to use our votes to make a strong statement. The APC has presented a Yoruba Muslim as its candidate while the PDP also presented a Fulani Muslim to succeed a Fulani Muslim (Muhammadu Buhari).”

Eastern Union is a pressure group with membership across Nigeria and the diaspora.