By Our Correspondent<\/p>\n
South-West governance activist, Dr. Jackson Lekan Ojo, has urged Nigerians to jettison ethnic and religious sentiments and rally behind former Vice President Atiku Abubakar for the 2027 presidency. <\/p>\n
Ojo, who resigned from the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, about two years ago, said Atiku\u2019s track record as Chairman of the National Economic Council remains unmatched and positions him to rescue Nigeria from its current hardship. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe need an Atiku. We have seen what Atiku achieved when he was just ordinary Vice President and Head of the Economic Team. I would not be holding mobile phone today if not for his economic team,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The activist recalled that before Atiku\u2019s tenure, Nigeria\u2019s telecommunications sector was \u201cbattered,\u201d but the economic team liberalized it without borrowing. <\/p>\n
He added that the team also worked to secure debt relief for debts incurred by past military administrations. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey did not borrow. Even the money the military administrations borrowed they worked towards it and the people wrote off our debts,\u201d Ojo stated. <\/p>\n
He said his personal experience under Atiku\u2019s watch convinced him that competence, not connections, delivers results. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was during his period I got mobile phone, built house, bought car and achieved a lot of things without knowing anybody or lobbying anyone. But if you do government contract now you need to lobby to get your payment. Enough is enough,\u201d he lamented. <\/p>\n
Ojo expressed concern that many Nigerians are prioritizing tribe and religion over performance ahead of 2027. <\/p>\n
He questioned the logic of regional voting, asking if Southerners buy fuel or food cheaper than Northerners. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was discussing with a friend and he said ‘why did you leave Bola Tinubu, Obi and you are supporting Atiku?’ I asked him ‘why did you leave Atiku and support either Tinubu or Obi?’ He said because Tinubu and Obi are from the South. I laughed and asked him as a Southerner where is that fueling station that you are buying petrol cheaper than a Northerner? He was dumbfounded,\u201d Ojo said. <\/p>\n
He described voting based on ethnicity or religion as \u201carrant nonsense\u201d and \u201cabsolute stupidity,\u201d arguing that Nigerians do not ask about the tribe or faith of pilots, lecturers, or market traders in their daily lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Our Correspondent South-West governance activist, Dr. Jackson Lekan Ojo, has urged Nigerians to jettison ethnic and religious sentiments and rally behind former Vice President Atiku Abubakar for the 2027 presidency. Ojo, who resigned from the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, about two years ago, said Atiku\u2019s track record as Chairman of the National Economic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15435"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15436,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15435\/revisions\/15436"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}