A FEW days after former President Olusegun Obasanjo endorsed the flagbearer of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, for the 2023 presidential election, an elder statesman Edwin Clark has also declared him his preferred candidate.
The Ijaw national leader and convener of the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) endorsed Obi on Tuesday, January 2, at a media briefing in his Abuja residence.
He urged Nigerians, irrespective of ethnic, religious and political affiliation, to back Obi because he is the “best hope of a new Nigeria”.
Clark said he had saddled himself with the responsibility of requesting PANDEF, and all other groups he belongs to, to give their support to the LP candidate.
“Putting His excellency Peter Obi side by side with all other candidates being presented by other political parties, I am convinced beyond doubt, that our country Nigeria has a great opportunity to elect a phenomenal team, the candidate of the Labour Party, and his deputy, senator Datti Baba-Ahmad, as President and Vice President respectively.
“I formally hereby announce that I will, therefore, personally, vote for HE Peter Obi and his vice presidential candidate on election day, February 25th, 2023, as President and Vice President of the federal republic of Nigeria,” he said.
Clark called on all Nigerians to vote for Obi without hesitation.
Meanwhile, the Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, has backed Obasanjo’s endorsement of Obi for the forthcoming presidential election.
The Benue governor maintained that if he were not a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he would have personally led Obi’s campaign across the country.
Ortom, in a statement issued Tuesday in Makurdi by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Terver Akase, also recommended Obi to Nigerians “as the man who has the capacity to effectively tackle the economic, security and other challenges facing the country”.
Obasanjo had earlier endorsed the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate Peter Obi for the presidency in 2023.
Obasanjo, in a six-page letter, disclosed his position on the 2023 presidential election in his New Year Message to Nigerians on Sunday, January 1.
A reporter with the ICIR
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