I’m ready to work with Peter Obi to rescue Nigerians –Bala Mohammed

Rauf Oyewole, Bauchi

The Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed has said that he is ready to work with the former presidential candidate of Labour Party, Peter Obi to form a variant opposition and deliver the country “from mediocres parading themselves as leaders”.

Mohammed made the statement while briefing journalists immediately after a closed door meeting with Obi, on Thursday in Bauchi.

According to him, Obi “is the leader of opposition in Nigeria, because of his position and pedigree. So I want to say to clear some of those doubting Thomas who want to prehemp what we are doing.

“Myself as a person, I’m ready to work with Peter Obi and to make sure we come together, close ranks, bring good governance to the country, to give vibrant opposition with knowledge and timelines with vision in such a manner that would rescue and recover our country from these mediocres that are parading themselves as leaders, definitely time has come. But we must step out and we do things with fidelity, with sincerity and focus.

“I think our coming together is a message. And the message is going to resonate, I believe, because all our colleagues, the governors, are behind this kind of journey, because it is a transcendental one, and I want to say that we are very grateful to Governor Peter Obi for coming here, and we will take it up and take it further in a manner that going forward you will see more of this outing between us and Governor Obi, PDP governors, and PDP as a party.

Also, Peter Obi said he visited Mohammed basically to discuss the country, “to consult him, being the chairman of PDP Governors Forum, being a critical person in Nigerian politics today, and what our country is going through, I felt it is necessary for me to come and discuss the future of our dear country with him.

“So instead of a consultation, it’s a meeting that will continue to go on as we talk about the future of this country. All of you are aware where we are today, what is happening in our country and everything. And yet we have to discuss that. You have to discuss the issues that are happening in the North. Like I have told the governor today, that the North is a critical component if we are going to get it right in this country.

“There’s so much criminality in Nigeria, especially when people talk about it, and I say, no, there’s poverty in Nigeria. You have to deal with the issue of poverty. Until you solve poverty, you can’t talk about criminality. Because if people don’t know where the next mural will come from, nobody can know what they can do.

“We can see poverty in the North, but there’s also a future that is everywhere. We can make more money today. Nigeria can be rich today from agriculture that will make for more yields. And I could see vast areas of uncultivated land that have been turning the government off everywhere I go. I’ve been visiting everywhere in the world. I just came back from a visit to Indonesia, the highest Muslim country in the world,” he said.

He said that Nigeria needed to invest in critical areas to put people out of poverty so the Nation could reduce criminality. He demanded investment in children to avoid children going towards drugs and other vices.

“We need education. We need to care about their health. But as you can see in the political space now, we are not discussing all this in the political space. What we are discussing in the political space are mundane things, whether it’s budget spending, whether it’s sexual harassment and people are hungry.

“We need to discuss hunger. We need to discuss poverty. We need to discuss education. We need to discuss health. What we are discussing should be the dignity of the political class. We are not in Hollywood.”