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The Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi has decried the slow and inadequate development in Bayelsa State.

Speaking after the flag-off of the November 2023 gubernatorial election for the Labour Party in Yenogoa Tuesday, Obi described the level of poverty in the state as painful and avoidable given the huge natural resources available in the state.

‘Today, I and the National Working Committee of our Party, led by Barr Julius Abure, were in Bayelsa State, for the flag-off of our gubernatorial elections in the State. We rallied behind our Gubernatorial Candidate, Engr Udengs Eradiri, and his running mate, Commodore Benjamin Natus.

“I felt a sense of pain in Bayelsa, knowing that the State, with all its endowed natural resources, remains the second poorest state in Nigeria with an 88.5 per cent poverty rate.

Recall that “It was in Oloibiri, Bayelsa that Nigeria first discovered oil in January 1956. Yet, Bayelsa still lacks the most basic amenities and good infrastructure.

Sixty-seven years after the discovery of oil in Bayelsa, the State cannot boast of good roads. This is a result of leadership failure, at different levels of government.

“We must begin to rid our nation of all forms of corruption that have held us down, and begin to deliver good governance to the people.

The former Anambra State governor then urged the good people of Bayelsa to support the candidate of the Labour Party, to not only transform the State, but enable the party to move the State in particular, and the nation in general, from consumption to production.

“That is the way to build the New Bayelsa, and ultimately, the New Nigeria of our dreams,” Obi said.