By John Ikani
Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi has ruled out dialogue with bandits and other criminal elements terrorising Nigeria.
Obi who appeared on Arise TV’s ‘Prime Time’ monitored by Heritage Times (HT) said he will only dialogue with agitators when he takes on the nation’s top job come 2023.
“For those who are agitating, and disagreeing, you first start by dialogue. No matter who they are, I will discuss with everybody so that you will know when to throw a line and say we’ve tried this and it’s not working,” he said.
When asked if he would dialogue with bandits, he said “they are not among people I will discuss with”.
“Bandits are bandits, criminals are criminals. I’m going to deal with it decisively,” he said.
“Those who want to be discussed with will be discussed with. Those who are agitating, those who feel unhappy, my job is to bring them to the table.”
Speaking further on the issue on insecurity and his broader plan of restructuring Nigeria, Obi said said there is a need to restructure the country but added that constitutional restructuring will take time.
“We need to restructure the country, it is for the good of the country. It will be constitutional restructuring but that will take time. There’s one you need to deal with. You don’t need to wait for that kind of restructure before pulling people out of poverty,” he said.
“To deal with issues of security, you don’t need to wait for constitutional restructuring. Those ones will happen and it for the interests of the whole nation,” he added.
Political parties officially kicked off their campaigns on Wednesday, September 28, ahead of the 2023 general election.
Members of the LP kickstarted their campaign activities with a mega rally in Jos, the Plateau state capital.
