Peter Obi empowers unemployed Nasarawa graduate

The flag bearer of the Labour Party in Nigeria’s just-concluded presidential election, Mr Peter Obi has empowered an unemployed Nasarawa State graduate, Gimba Sophia Emmanuel in her aspiration to acquire an oven and start her baking and confectionery business.

In a social media post on Saturday, Obi said that Emmanuel indicated that she would procure a Nigerian-made oven, thus enhancing the value chain and putting into effect the production-to-consumption philosophy of the Labour Party.

The former Anambra State governor presented a cheque to Emmanuel to procure an oven.

On Thursday, Obi was teary-eyed as he lamented the sufferings of young Nigerians in the country. He had narrated his encounter with Emmanuel who works as a tea maker.

“She has no job, she graduated since 2018. She told me she is learning how to bake. Then I asked her why she is not baking instead of coming here to do this. She said she doesn’t have N75,000 to buy an oven. That is the life you get in Nigeria; people who don’t have N75,000 to buy an oven”, he had said.

In Nasarawa State, Obi beat all the other 17 political parties in the presidential elections polling 191,361 (35.88 percent) out of 533,324 votes as against 172,922 votes (32.42 percent) by his closest rival, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress. Tinubu however won the election overall scoring 8,794,726 votes with the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party coming second (6,984,520 votes) and Obi third (6,101,533 votes).

Both Obi and Atiku are however disputing the conduct of the election and its result, and have approached the Election Petitions tribunal.