The Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, has said that his visit to Egypt is very expository and preparatory.
Peter Obi who was speaking during an interview with Voice of the People Fm on Sunday said that his visit is based on his understanding that “if you’re aspiring to lead, that’s the time you need to study and know what you are going to do. If there’s an example anywhere globally, you go there to learn.”
Peter Obi stated that his choice of Egypt is because they’re one of the countries with the fastest deployment of power globally, alongside Vietnam and India.
“Egypt moved their power from about 20,000MW to 58,000MW between 2015 and 2020, that’s 5 years, while Nigeria as a country was able to generate 1000MW in the 60s, 60 years after, they can’t generate above 4,000MW, that shows a crisis.
“If Egypt could move their generation by 30,000MW in 5 years and Nigeria could do only 4, 000 in 60 years, you need to go and learn what they did. I went there, I was taken round the facility, met the company that did it, went to the ministry, met the power holding company chief, met the people in the ministry, above all, met those who provided the finance. I now know its easy within a period of 5 years to move power generation, distribution and transmission from where we’re today to 15,000 to 20,000MW.”
Obi recalled that this isn’t his first time of visiting a working nation when aspiring for public office.
“When I was campaigning to be Governor, I visited Bangladesh for the first time, to learn how they dealt with the poor, took people out of poverty and know what they’re doing about education.
I did the same thing in rural India and found out that when we’re busy building mansions for leaders, they were building rural roads to give people access to bring agricultural produce they can sell and make money. Go and ask anybody as Governor of Anambra State, every part of Anambra was connected by rural roads and bridges, that’s what I learnt. That’s what I’m doing again. I went to Egypt to learn with my own resources.”
Peter Obi also revealed that he has been talking to local engineers about it too.
Obi also stated that he is getting ready for the job so he won’t complain about his predecessors when he assumes office like Nigerian leaders do, stressing that it’s not the job of a leader to complain but to show leadership.
“When you vote people in here, the next thing, they will start telling you is that what we saw, when we came in, or start blaming the person they took over from.
“As a leader, when you’re elected, you are meant to be in charge, you’re not meat to complain. The job of a leader isn’t to complain nor give excuses. It’s for you to solve problems.”