No fewer than 38,000 medical doctors and other health workers have thrown their weight behind the presidential bid of Mr Peter Obi, the standard bearer of the Labour Party.
They also promised to mobilise 25 million votes for the former governor of Anambra state through free nationwide medical outreach programmes at the grassroots level under the aegis of Docs and Medics for Peter Obi.
This is even as the National Woman Leader of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, Ada Orji Nwanyanwu, dumped the party and led other women politicians across the country to the Labour Party.
Speaking during the presentation of working tools by three support groups to the Labour Party’s campaign council at the party’s headquarters in Abuja on Monday, the convener of Docs and Medics for Peter Obi, Dr Uche Uzoukwu, explained how the group plans to deliver the 25 million votes in 2023.
He stated: “Nurses, doctors and pharmacists are coming together under the name docs and medics for Peter Obi. Politics is a game of numbers and everyone is important. Therefore, 11,000 doctors, 27,000 medics have come together and have formed even state groups.
“We are reaching out to the local governments and have moved down to the wards and leaders have been inaugurated. We are moving down to the polling units and have 500,000 to grow and encourage them to get in touch with 50 people as the attend to patients. With this, we can have 25 million votes.
“We want to deliver 25 million votes, by giving right to life and to be well, the votes can be gathered. Medical outreaches have been in place and is still being used. Community members at the outreaches are encouraged to vote Peter Obi with a promise that the exercise will continue once Labour Party wins,” he said.
Lamenting the poor state of the nation’s health sector, Uzoukwu said Obi has the capacity to tackle brain drain; stressing that the doctors and the medics would stay behind after the 2023 elections to develop the sector.
He recalled that during the window period of PVC registration, the group had paid for logistics for persons without voter cards to be registered by officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), noting that such was done in 26 states and 52 different locations where thousands were registered.
Earlier, the National Chairman of Labour Party, Barrister Julius Abure, said the country has never experienced democracy since 1999, but will however begin on its course come 2023 when the former Anambra governor is voted in as president.
He stated that the ruling All Peoples Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party were never owned by the people but by those who funded it, adding that he who blows the piper, dictates the tune of the music.
Abure also lampooned that persons who had claimed that the party is without structure, saying such narrative owing have been buried due to the rising popularity of the party.
The event also coincided with the defection of the National Woman Leader of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, Ada Orji Nwanyanwu and other women politicians to the LP.
According to Nwanyanwu, she was leaving APGA because “Peter Obi has the answer to the challenges facing Nigeria.”
