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A former presidential aspirant of the All Progressives Congress at the 2019 elections, Charles Udeogaranya, has thrown his weight behind the presidential ambition of Labour Party flagbearer, Peter Obi.
Udeogaranya, who affirmed his position in a statement issued in Abuja on Tuesday, said the Muslim-Muslim ticket posture of his ex-party was a clear sign of an Islamisation agenda and despotic government.
This is even as he declared Obi as the most credible candidate to lead Nigeria out of the woods.
The politician’s public endorsement came barely three months after another erstwhile APC presidential aspirant, Dr. S.K.C. Ogbonnia, withdrew his support for the party’s presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, to publicly endorse Obi.
Ogbonnia had attributed the reason for his action for dumping Tinubu to his frailty and “shady background.”
Udeogaranya on Tuesday also chose to tread the same path when he threw his weight behind the LP candidate.
According to him, there is a grave need for Nigerians to shun primordial sentiments and vote the right candidate because “times like these demand patriotism and self-help to make the best decisions for our country Nigeria.”
The former APC aspirant said he was unhappy that Nigerians were witnessing what he called a “grinding economic plague” that had driven Nigerians to the lowest ebb of desperation.
He said he was also unhappy that Nigeria was sliding into anarchy, with the rights of the citizenry wantonly trampled upon.
He said, “It needs to be emphasised that the Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket of the All Progressive Congress (APC) being imposed on Nigerians is a clear sign of the Islamisation agenda and despotic government that are to come. Indeed, that ticket and those flying it have nothing but deceit to offer.
“And we further fear that the pack that conceived the Muslim-Muslim ticket and audaciously imposed it on the rest of us will not at some point begin to behead the people who see things differently unless they give up their right of freedom of worship and expression.
“It was before our own eyes that a young female Christian student called Deborah Samuel was sent to her untimely death in the most despicable manner, by stoning, her body set ablaze for allegedly expressing her constitutional right to freedom of expression. Her gruesome death culminated to the telling reality that our society is no longer safe to live in as the average Nigerian’s constitutionally-guaranteed right to life is being brutally trampled upon.
“Barely one year ago, our youths engaged in a sweeping, non-violent EndSARS protest, demanding a reformation of our policing agency.
“Sadly, rather than offering succour to the protesting youths, they were most gruesomely mowed down with guns and bullets purchased with our scarce resources. Those arms and ammunition were meant to protect the citizenry against aggression. But they were turned against those killed; they were used against harmless, defenceless youths for daring to ventilate their feelings. They were taken down as if their lives did not matter.”
He declared, “With regard to what I have noted, and not limited to them all, I, Chief Charles Udoka Udeogaranya, endorse the Labour Party presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi as a worthy candidate to pilot the affairs of Nigeria and help to bring to a halt, the perpetual backsliding of Nigeria and possibly reposition Nigeria for better.”
