Presidential aspirant on the platform of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Honourable Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, has declared that the 2027 general elections will be the turn of Nigerians to rescue themselves from the current administration, which he says has inflicted unimaginable sufferings on the people.
The former Rivers State Governor also stated that if consensus does not favour him, he will go into primaries, dismissing narratives of a Christian or Muslim turn. He emphasized that every aspirant running for the office of President has an antecedent and should be judged by their records of service.
Amaechi, who spoke after submitting his nomination and expression of interest forms at the National Secretariat of the ADC on Thursday, pointed out that his experience in public service convinces him that he is the right candidate to defeat incumbent President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 2027.
He told journalists that the era of entitlement based on sentiment or regional considerations should be discarded if Nigeria wants to make progress.
Amaechi Calls for Merit-Based Voting
His words: "I would say that what you are seeing currently is that nearly everybody who is running for the office of the president has served Nigeria in one way or another. Let this be a referendum. If you have performed, whoever has outperformed the other, vote for the person.
"The next thing is who is capable of delivering the votes. Who is capable of beating the incumbent, who has the experience and I believe I am the most experienced. I am young, I am the most experienced, and I believe I have the capacity. That is as it pertains to the country. Go back to Rivers State and see what I have done. Go back to Ministry of Transportation and see what I have done, and assess it and see whether I can turn the country around. And I will, in four years, turn the country around."
Making a strong case for merit, the former Transportation minister stressed, "Nigerians should vote for merit, don't vote for those who say 'I am from this place', 'I am from that place', vote for me because my people have not been voted for before, or it is our turn.
"It is this that you call it 'Emilokan' that brought us here. It is our turn that brought us here.
"It is the turn of Nigerians, because you see there is no market for Christians, neither is there a market for Muslims, or a market for northerners or southerners. The market has only just one purpose, the forex. And what is forex, Naira. And Nigerians are suffering. They are suffering. The current president has put us in this suffering. I don't know why he wants to run. I don't even know why APC wants to participate. They should be in shame and allow other Nigerians to participate and change the country."
