The presidential candidate of the Allied Peoples Movement, APM, Engr Seyi Makinde on Thursday said he was almost discouraged from coming to the South-East to hold his town hall meeting.
Makinde, who spoke in Enugu, where he addressed South-East stakeholders, said he considered the fact that the zone is the stronghold of Mr Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC.
The Oyo State governor, however, said he had enormous regard for the people of the zone.
“We were almost discouraged. Oh, this is the zone for my friend and brother, His Excellency Peter Obi.
“And the South-East is totally for him.
“And we said, well, we definitely will bring our message also to the South-East.
“And my message to you today is that, please, reject all divisions across either religious or ethnic lines. The challenges we are faced with do not know religion, do not know ethnicity,” he said.
The APM candidate stated that he had delayed the release of his manifesto in order to gauge the feelings and needs of the Nigerian masses.
“People have been asking us, where’s your manifesto?
“Oh, you’ve been criticising the current administration, but tell us what you want to do.
“Well, we’ve been going around the country. We’ve been to the North-East, the North-West, the North-Central, the South-South, the South-West, and we’re now in the South-East.
“We’re not like that. We don’t just manufacture things from the sky. We listen to our people, we hear from them what they would like to see, and we incorporate it into our agenda.
“So, this is the last of the town hall meetings. Over this weekend, we’ll be working around the clock with our team to get our manifesto ready, and it will be launched on the 4th of November, 2026,” he disclosed, adding that his manifesto would contain the needs of Nigerians and proposed solutions.
Makinde also referenced the latest event involving Nyesom Wike’s Rainbow Coalition in Rivers State as a sign of the party’s growth.
Apparently referring to Wike, he said a good friend of his had included the APM in the Rainbow Coalition, an indication that the party was growing.
“I saw a good friend of mine who was putting together the Rainbow Coalition in Rivers State.
“And he listed all the parties in the Rainbow Coalition and mentioned APM.
“And I said, so APM suddenly has graduated to when they will add APM to their Rainbow Coalition?
“They’ve tried and tried to undermine almost every opposition political party. All the parties have been, one way or the other, undermined.
“They can try. They can pull down posters. They can even ensure that they disturb your campaign while they are giving people money to do their bidding. We are winning hearts.
“So, let them pull the posters down. Let them destroy your billboards. But please, have your voter’s card and your thumb. They cannot pull your thumb from you. And that is what you will use to send them away.
“Secondly, they’ve said we have a lot of money in our external reserves. We have a lot of money. That’s what they said. They even said the revenue service has collected enough revenue and taxes to surpass the target for the year.
“But we still have to borrow money. How do we cross this hurdle?” he queried.
While also questioning Tinubu’s trip to Saudi Arabia, Makinde said:
“I was reading on social media last night up until this morning that our president is travelling to Saudi Arabia to pray for Nigeria. Prayers are answered even in this country.”
“Please, we will stay here, we will pray for Nigeria, and we will also pray for our leaders’ peace. Stop all the deceit and tell Nigerians the exact, true situation of things,” he added.