Barrister Neda Imasuen, Labour Party (LP) standard bearer for Edo South Senatorial District in the February 25th, 2023 poll, has affirmed that his party’s pay-off line ‘we must take back Nigeria’ is not a fluke but a reality that will turn around the fortunes of the country for the better.
In a chat the National Assembly (NASS) hopeful said: “We want to take back Nigeria from those that have mismanaged it. That’s the long and short of that. We are also saying that we are replacing that with a new Nigeria. A new Nigeria that have different ideals. A new Nigeria that will have passion for Nigeria.
“A new Nigeria that will crop up people who are patriotic; Nigerians who are proud to be Nigerians; we want to bring up a Nigeria that people will be proud to live in and not the Nigeria where the young man or young woman after graduation is not having job for years is walking down through the desert to Tripoli and undertaking that dangerous trip of the high seas into Europe and in the end scores of them are dead.
“That’s the Nigeria we want to take back. That’s not the Nigeria in our view. The Nigeria in our view is to bring back Nigerians to Nigeria because we are going to stabilise the economy; we are going to make sure that security is taken care of as it should be. We want to make sure that what’s needed here in Nigeria is here for Nigerians to come back and to stop those who want to go not to go out of Nigeria.
“That’s the Nigeria we are talking about and that is the new Nigeria we are building to make it something better for all of us.”
Contrary to the claims in some quarters that he is a greenhorn in legislative matters, Barrister Imasuen said that “I will do it(legislative assignment) better than Senator Mathew Urhoghide(the outgoing occupant of the Edo South Senatorial District seat) not because he has not done well but because he has taught me to do it better than him.
“I have been his legislative aide for seven and half years and was so involved in many things that he did. The projects that he brought in I was so involved in mapping them out. I was involved in getting them ready; I was involved in dispatching them to Benin City and all the areas they were installed.
“His bills and motions I was fully involved in drafting them and making sure that his office was in order. But if you’re talking about the party, Labour Party, it will do things differently. What LP is bringing is good governance.
“As you can see it is the lack of good governance that has brought us to where we are today. The country has literally been brought to its knees in every facet of its life whether economy, social, healthwise, security. Everything has been brought to its knees. LP is here to offer a difference, good governance, good policies to the country different from what we have been experiencing from past years.”
Speaking on the emergence of the LP to challenge the much older All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) strong hold of the polity, Barrister Imasuen stressed: “This is what is needed. Thank God that God has thrown up the LP to shake up the polity as it is today. Had LP not come on board the choice for Nigerians would have been the same thing.
“The two sides of a coin is what APC and PDP are. That’s what they represent. They’re not different from each other. They do the same thing and we have never been able to move from one point to another with these parties.”
On claims that the LP’s Presidential candidate, Peter Obi, does not have a structure, “if they say that Peter Obi has no structure then what am I? I am a structure, one of his structures. I have people in all the seven local government areas and the 77 wards that constitute Edo South District.
“If that’s not structure then may be they’re talking about the moneybags. These are the parties that rely on their money. These people have so raped this country dry of its resources. They now have resources to buy votes and to mislead the populace again. If that’s what they consider structure it is unfortunate. We don’t have that sort of structure.
“We have the human structure. We have the human ideals. We have the belief of the people that things must change and of course things must change. The structure that they are talking about will surprise them on election day.”
