A 74-year-old retired military officer, Chinyere Obi, has slammed Labour Party and its candidate in the 2023 presidential election, Mr Peter Obi for allegedly abandoning her after being shot by political thugs in Imo State over her commitment to the party.
Chinyere, a retired Colonel and a card-carrying member of the Labour Party, who spoke to journalists on Thursday in Abuja, regretted that neither the party nor Peter Obi reached out to her after was shot in the leg while campaigning for the party’s presidential candidate, Legit reports.
The septuagenarian narrated how she sold her Honda Pilot SUV to fund her medical treatment after the incident, noting that she did not expect the party or Peter Obi to pick up her bills but to show solidarity.
She said,
“I had to sell my Honda Pilot Jeep for N1.5 million in June to be able to treat the gunshot wound. At my age, 74, I am selling my things to heal completely.
“As a retired colonel, I have my pension and entitlements. I wasn’t even asking for money my anger is that nobody reached out not even one single person came to the hospital at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC) to say sorry.
“I fought and campaigned for Obi, for the youths so that Nigeria can change. I have no need for anything, I am a British citizen and my children are all British citizens. I have nothing to lose or gain, I spent N5 million buying rice, visiting people, women across the country.”
Shedding more light on how she was attacked, 74-year-old Chinyere said the problem started when she tried to protect a Labour Party’s polling unit agent in her hometown in the Ideato South Local Government Area of Imo State.
According to her, on election day, some unidentified political thugs invaded her polling unit and threatened the Labour Party polling unit agent and she tried to intervene.
“The next thing I heard,” she said was “pooh-pooh! It was gunshots on my leg.”
She noted that she is diabetic, adding that the shooting could have led to the amputation of her leg but “nobody from Labour Party, not Abure (referring to LP’s sacked national chairman – Julius Abure) or even Peter Obi sent a word or visited.
“It was only two people who sent me words from the Labour Party. I regret, I curse the day I entered the Labour Party. I was in PDP (Peoples Democratic Party), and when Obi joined Labour Party, I followed him.”
However, she urged President Bola Tinubu to intensify efforts to end insecurity in Nigeria, especially in the southeast region.
She stated that she was confident in the capacity of President Tinubu and was sure he would end the hardship in the country.