Nigeria’s Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, has fired back at the presidential candidate of the Nigerian Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi, saying he does not need to be a presidential candidate to educate the former Anambra State governor on infrastructure.

Addressing journalists at a construction site on Sunday, Umahi made the remark while defending the ongoing infrastructure projects of the Tinubu administration, insisting that he is committed to ensuring their completion.

He said: “I asked my brother, His Excellency Peter Obi, for a debate on what I am doing. He said I am not the presidential candidate. I told him I am on the ballot. When President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is on the ballot, then I am on the ballot because I don’t want this project to stop. I want it to be completed.

“So, I want all of us together to win with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu so that he can continue.

“I don’t know the big deal about being a presidential candidate. There are presidential candidates, and there are presidential candidates. I belong a little bit higher than what he belongs to.

“So, to be a presidential candidate is not an achievement. And if you go to a site that’s under construction and stand there to say the road is bad, what were you doing? Like the turtle that has been in its shell until the day it is released.

“I don’t need to be a presidential candidate to educate you, as a professor, on infrastructure,” he said.

‘I don’t need to be presidential candidate to educate you’ – Umahi hits back at Peter Obi