One of the leading aspirants of the Peoples Democratic Party (DPD), Peter Obi, was a guest on Berekete Family today. Berekete is an Abuja radio 101.1FM phone-in programme, anchored by Ahmed Isah, a man with the studio name, Ordinary President.
Below are some of Obi’s sound bites that have continued to get Nigerians talking:
1. It is a mark of irresponsibility that our children are at home, and we are campaigning.
2. We bought our tickets at N40million/N100 million. Can Nigerians demand from candidates their annual income taxes?
3. Nigeria is chairing $18 billion from oil revenue, while Malaysia is making 50 billion dollars from diaspora remittances.
4. By 2030, the whole world will be in dire need of computer engineers and health professionals to the tune of 10 million people, and our children are wasting away at home.
5. Kwamen Nkuruma University of Ghana is the best university in Africa and one of the best 50 in the world in Science and technology studies.
6. If I become the President, education in primary and secondary schools will be free, while tertiary education will not be free.
7. My first three priorities as president will be education, education and education.
8. I will invest and invest in education and export graduates and increase diaspora remittance from $20 billion.
9. As Governor of Anambra State, I paid all corps members serving in schools N4,000 on the 24th of every month as a stipend.
10. As Governor I paid every citizen of Anambra above the age of 70 and residing in a rural area a stipend of N5,000 every month.
11. When I assumed office as governor, I discovered that Anambra State has a Governor’s Lodge at Abuja. I renovated the building and donated it to the United Nations free of charge. It eliminated our cost of maintenance, and till today, the UN has been supporting the Anambra State Government.
12. You can fight insecurity in two ways: natural insecurity is fought by creating jobs, and institutional insecurity is fought with technology.
13. There is nothing like a security vote in our constitution. What we have is a contingency vote, which should be a max of 4% of expenditure.
14. As Governor, they brought a security vote of N12.5 billion for approval annually. From there, I gave each primary school in the state N5 million each, secondary school N10 million each and supported five schools of nursing and midwifery to get accreditation. I gave about 500 first-class graduates from Anambra each N1 million. All cost the state N10 billion. The remaining N2.5 billion was used as a security vote, which covered the payment of security personnel at communities and bought vehicles for 200 communities in Anambra.
15. To create jobs, banks must be made to give a certain percentage of loans to SMEs.
16. I have a 28-year-old son who works in the UK, and he has no car. He has to earn and buy himself a car.
17. My 30-year-old daughter is a teacher in a secondary school, and she is happy doing her work.
18. Throughout my eight years as governor, nobody of the Peter Obi family served in my government. I was the one elected, and none of them. I take all responsibility for governance.
19. If, as president, I don’t steal and my wife and children don’t steal, corruption would have been cut by 50%.
20. The youths you neglect today will take revenge on you tomorrow.
