Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi said the Federal Government has not shown compassion to the plight of flood victims across Nigeria.
“We want a Nigeria that we will show patriotism by caring for the people on everything. Look at the flooding that has happened all over Nigeria. As far as I am concerned, the Government of Nigeria has not responded adequately, they’ve not shown compassion,” the former Anambra State governor said on Tuesday during a visit to Governor Samuel Ortom in Makurdi, the Benue State capital.
“Leadership comes with compassion, it comes with listening, it comes with understanding. Even those people in (Internally Displaced Persons) IDP (camps) how many people has the Federal Government come to visit. That is what you do, that is what shows you are committed.”
Obi also said the ‘deal’ he has with some aggrieved governors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) including Ortom is to achieve a better Nigeria.
“The only deal I have with them is that they are passionate about Nigeria,” Obi said.
On his part, Ortom described the former governor of Anambra State as one of the finest presidential candidates for the 2023 general election.
The governor said Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour party (LP) has the capacity to liberate Nigeria from economic and security challenges.
“If Nigeria needs to make a choice, you are one of the finest candidates that we have in this country. In terms of education, in terms of character, in terms of performance, in terms of reaching out, in terms of being a pan-Nigerian, in terms of industrialisation, passion to ensure that our country is liberated from where we are; out of insecurity to security, and out of economic woes to economic vibrancy and out of lack to adequate social life, you have the capacity to make things work,” Ortom stated.
In the last one month, Obi had visited flood-ravaged communities in Benue, Bayelsa and a few others to commiserate with victims.
He had tasked the Federal Government to be proactive in mitigating the effects of devastating floods across the country and declare an emergency.
Obi had also called on his counterparts in other parties to suspend their campaigns and join him to help victims of floods across states of the federation.
Floods have hit parts of Nigeria in the last two months with the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) saying that about 2.5 million persons were affected and over 603 persons killed by the flooding caused by torrential rainfall of late.
Houses and farmlands have been submerged in Lagos, Yobe, Borno, Taraba, Adamawa, Edo, Delta, Kogi, Niger, Plateau, Benue, Ebonyi, Anambra, Bauchi, Gombe, Kano, Jigawa, Zamfara, Kebbi, Sokoto, Imo, Abia States, and the Federal Capital Territory.
The 2022 floods have attracted international “solidarity”. In a letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, King Charles III sympathised with Nigeria over the “devastating” incidents.