‘Peter Obi has capacity to pull Nigeria out of woods’

Datti Baba-Ahmed, running mate to Presidential Candidate of Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, who has just been unveiled has accepted to be the vice presidential candidate of the party, saying he believes in Obi’s ability to pull Nigeria out of the woods.

Speaking when he was formally unveiled in Abuja on Friday, Baba-Ahmed, said he trusted that Obi would not mismanage the nation’s wealth, adding that his outing as Anambra governor lends credence to his belief.

The Director General of the Peter Obi Campaign Organisation, Dr. Doyin Okupe, who became the Vice Presidential candidate placeholder, had stepped down on Thursday.

Okupe resigned to create room for the substantive running mate from the northern extraction to balance the geopolitical and religious considerations.

Recall that LP’s merger talks with the Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso’s New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) had collapsed due to the inability of the parties to agree on who should bear the touch in the merger outcome.

Obi’s foray into the Labour Party seemed to have changed the narratives in the political analyses as the party has become a force to reckon with, making the awareness on Permanent Voters Card (PVC) a household matter as youths are now trooping to the PVC’s registration centres to be registered.

His acceptance has, especially among the youths, metamorphosed into a campaign known as #Obidient Movement with the slogan: #TakeBackNaija.

The LP presidential running mate, Senator Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, is a 46-year-old renowned academic, businessman and politician.

He was a member of the House of Representatives between 2003 and 2007, and was elected Senator for Kaduna North, in Kaduna State, in April 2011 running on the Congress for Progressives Change (CPC) ticket, with a remarkable record for sponsoring important bills and motions in short time.

In 2011, Senator Baba-Ahmed established Baze University, an independent university located in Abuja, and Baba-Ahmed University, Kano (Awaiting License).

In 2015, Baba-Ahmed was appointed as Chairman, Board of Trustees (BOT) of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Hope Alive Foundation, which campaigns for post-service economic survival of corps members, who suffered permanent disability during service.