The Professor Bart Nnaji Campaign Organisation has called on all individuals and political parties preparing to contest in the 2023 general elections to emulate Enugu State Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and eschew politics of bitterness and hatred.
In a statement signed by the organisation’s Director General, Richy Agu,it said that the atmosphere of peace in Enugu State in the last seven years accounted for the remarkable progress the state is witnessing.
“Enugu State can imitate fast developing nations and territories like Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and Malaysia as well as Dubai only when there is sustained peace”, the group stated on Saturday, quoting its principal, Professor Nnaji, a former Minister of Power and a globally recognised engineering authority.
The group explained that the call on political parties and their members to continue with the tradition of peace became imperative following the wave of bitter politics which some people in the state had displayed in recent days.
“For instance,” it said, “a tiny group of politicians has been sponsoring violent articles on the social media against leading Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members participating in the gubernatorial primary election of 21st May. Worse, the same elements have been sponsoring thugs to destroy Prof. Nnaji’s billboards, which adorn the streets of the state. The billboards attacked in the last 24 hours include the ones at the famous Okpara Square in Independence Layout, Enugu”.
The statement advised PDP governorship aspirants to see themselves as members of one family, all the more so since almost all of them from the same senatorial zone. It continued: “They should provide leadership by personal example and demonstrate to all Nigerians that politics do not have to be a matter of do or die”.
The campaign body warned politicians who might wish to bring back “memories of the violent politics of the past, which led to many killings and destructions, resulting in massive investment flight from Enugu State. Investment everywhere in the world is a coward, and goes to only places where it does not feel threatened. Our state is in dire need of investments, so that our people, especially the youth, will be given employment and business opportunities”.
It ascribed the ongoing agitation in the Southeast and other parts of the country to a profound lack of opportunities for the young ones.
The organisation equested all PDP gubernatorial aspirants and all those seeking public office in the forthcoming general elections to lay out their visions of development to the people.
“Our people seek a new direction which will dramatically raise their living standards”, it stated, adding:
“On a personal level, Prof. Nnaji is both inspired and challenged by the Singapore example. Singapore, which is so small that it looks like a dot on the world map, has no mineral deposits, and yet it became within less than 30 years a global development miracle. Prof. Nnaji is convinced that Enugu State can make it, too. If Dubai, a Muslim and Arab territory, can arrest global attention with its dizzy development, nothing prevents Enugu State, capital of not just the Southeast but also Eastern Nigeria, from rising rapidly”.
