Ahead of 2023 general elections, the South-East and Middle Belt Forum have endorsed the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) Peter Obi.
This was the group’s position during a news conference in Abuja on Wednesday. The Chairman of the Forum Olisa Uzowulu noted that the former Anambra State governor ranks higher than all presidential candidates for next year’s exercise.
“We are going to go out there and fight a change. That is why you get the South-East, the Middle Belt, the South-South and the South-West to be one body and campaign for Peter Obi. There is no two-way about it,” he said during the conference.
“The Forum has decided on it. We are going to go out and work for him as a group. There is no choice about that.”
As far as the Forum is concerned, Obi’s support base transcends tribe, religion, and ethnicity as the Chairman said the former governor’s aspiration is people-driven.
“It is the people that are driving Obi, not even the party. They love him, people want a change. They are tired of the situation,” Uzowulu explained.
“There is nothing to sell to people anymore – it is not tribe, or religion but the belief that we have to move ahead. People are going to make a choice this time, nobody is going to hoodwink them again.”
He, therefore, called on members of the Forum and its supporters across the regions to pick up their Permanent Voter’s Cards (PVCs) and vote en masse for the Labour Party candidate next year.
Obi is one of the leading contenders for the presidential seat alongside the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s Atiku Abubakar and Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
He was the running mate to Atiku during the 2019 poll under the main opposition PDP which lost to President Muhammadu Buhari of the APC.
