INSECURITY: I Will Sack Appointees Who Fail To Perform – Peter Obi

The Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, says Nigeria’s security challenges have become an existential threat to the survival of the country.

In a BBC Africa interview aired on Tuesday, Obi said if elected, he will review and restructure Nigeria’s security architecture to make it responsive and responsible.

“Security has become an existential issue for Nigeria, you can’t talk about being a country unless it is secured, unless the citizens are secure, so it’s an existential issue that must be dealt with head-on and decisively.

“You have to immediately review and restructure the entire security architecture, make it responsive and responsible, responsive in the sense that they will deal with issues as quickly as possible, responsible that someone is in charge, and if they don’t do it, the person will go.”

The LP candidate also noted that there was a correlation between Nigeria’s worsening security and rising food prices.

“If you deal with security then you can deal with inflation, because the worst form of inflation we are experiencing today is food inflation, so if you secure the country, your farmers will go back to farm, they will produce more and the food inflation will come down,” he said

On his plans to defeat well-established political parties with nationwide structures during the 2023 presidential election, Obi said the failure of the established political parties has brought Nigeria to the unpleasant state she finds herself in today.

“What brought us to where we are today is mainly leadership failure over the years, by the same people who are in office today, so we are talking about the structure that has produced the highest number of people in poverty in any country, the highest number of out-of-school children, made the country one of the most corrupt countries in the world, made it one of the most insecure places in the world, brought about the highest youth unemployment in the world, brought disunity in Nigeria, that is the structure we want to remove.

“I want to bring a structure that will secure, unite and bring about production-centred leadership in Nigeria, where we would start pulling people out of poverty, where we would start ensuring that people get jobs when they leave school by supporting Micro, Small Enterprises. A structure that will start governing by the rule of law, a structure that will fight corruption, this is the structure we need now, so I believe that the people know what I’m fighting for,” he added.