Election: God’s Wish Is Doing Right Thing, Says Obi

By Samuel Bolaji

The presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the February 25 Presidential and National Assembly elections, Peter Obi, said on Monday that the wish of God was to do the right thing.

Obi was reacting to a question posed to him during his appearance on Arise TV’s ‘The Morning Show’ monitored by our correspondent in Lagos.

Asked about his view on some clerics and prominent Nigerians’ position that the outcome of the presidential election was God’s wish despite the recorded infractions, Obi, who said he was very respectful to prominent Nigerians including clerics and traditional rulers, said, “I disagree with them. What they’re actually preaching is the problem of Nigeria.

“The problem of Nigeria is accepting wrongdoing, accepting what is unacceptable…that is using God’s name in vain. That’s not what God says.”

He continued, “What they’re saying is not God’s wish. It is not God’s plan for Nigeria. Why don’t we accept that the 133 million Nigerians who are poor is God’s wish? Why don’t we accept that 95 million Nigerians living in…poverty is God’s wish? It is God’s wish that we don’t have electricity. It is God’s wish that our children are kidnapped. It is God’s wish that we have collapsed primary healthcare leading us to be the country with the highest (rate of) infant mortality… That’s not what God says.

“God’s wish is when you do the right thing.”

Obi said there were clear laws for the conduct of the elections and if the laws were followed, no one would challenge the process.

He added that “it would have been concluded in a matter of hours without anybody arguing about it.”

“But it is not God’s wish that you do the wrong thing,” Obi added. “It is not God’s wish that you go and rob a train and make money and start sharing it… This is what is killing the country. People come here, take public money and then go and give it to people in the Church…and they say it’s God’s wish…that is what we’re fighting. That’s what we want to stop.

“We want God’s wish to be truly God’s wish. And that is when we do the right things and God gives His blessings…

“What do you tell the young ones growing up? That it’s God’s wish that you steal? That is God’s wish that you conduct a wrong election? So, tell me the difference between those of us who are doing this and the armed robbers,” Obi said.

Obi noted that he wants “God to allow us to do the right things so we can start building a better country for our children.”

Source: The Punch