Watch: Nigerian presidential candidate Peter Obi on his plans to transform Nigeria’s economy
When Barack Obama took office in 2009, he promised to usher in a new type of American president: “I have an unshakeable sense that the United States is not a country that will be defined by our differences, but by our common humanity. That is what the United States is about: We are all in this together. And if we don’t have the courage to reach across our differences and solve problems together, then we haven’t got a country that we can be proud of.”
Now, in a new campaign video, Nigerian presidential candidate and social activist Peter Obi is promising a very different kind of America: One where “differences don’t matter.”
“My fellow citizens,” Obi says in the video. “We are all Africans. We are all Nigerians. And we are all in this together. We are all Africans who are Africans who are Nigerians. We are all African who are Nigerian, and we are all Nigerians who are African who are Nigerian.”
But he says that the “difference” that makes us different from neighboring countries, and different from Europe, is being overcome. “I’m not going to ask Americans to accept African Americans as equals,” he says. “I’ve already had the experience with how that has not gone well. I did it when I was Mayor of Lagos, and I know that that has not gone well there also. We need to do it now.”
Obi, who previously served as the chair of the Nigerian senate and has served as the mayor of Lagos for three terms, says he will fight for more African people to be accepted in America, and for African Americans. He has also pledged to fight for black people in Nigeria, which he says has “lost one of its worst political leaders in the last fifty years and is only now beginning to recover from the destruction wrought by the dictator Yar Muhammad.”
He lists the many ways in which Nigeria has been damaged by the “misguided and misguided” policies of that dictator. “I want to see a Nigeria that has a government that is not afraid of the consequences of their actions. A Nigeria that understands what it means to go to the aid of our brothers and sisters who are suffering under the oppression of bigotry, and a Nigeria that sees to it that all people of all races and colors can co-exist, without discrimination and without violence.” (Note: This video includes