Posted by Sola Adebayo, Warri on
Presidential candidate of Justice Party in the 2003 election, Rev. Chris Okotie, has advised former military ruler, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, to forget his presidential ambition.
Presidential candidate of Justice Party in the 2003 election, Rev. Chris Okotie, has advised former military ruler, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, to forget his presidential ambition.
Okotie described Babangida's presidential bid in 2007 as 'a fruitless journey," adding that Babangida can never emerge as president of Nigeria again.
Okotie said this in an interview with newsmen on arrival at Osubi Airport, Warri, for a church programme in the oil city.
Okotie said he was disturbed by the widespread rumour that President Olusegun Obasanjo signed a pact with Babangida to return him to Aso Rock in 2007.
He said, 'Whoever that has entered into a contract, the important thing is that in the next dispensation, Rev. Chris Okotie will emerge as president and whether IBB had any connection, any contract or pact with anybody, he will never emerge as the president of the country again."
Okotie said the time had come for generational change in the election of the people at the helm of affairs in the country, adding that such change was the antidote to the myriad of problems plaguing the country.
He said, 'I believe that what President Obasanjo has done so far is what he can do under the present circumstance.
'We emerge from a military background in the process of democratisation and in my mind, he had done what he could do. What we are waiting for now is to have a shift to another generation that will take Nigeria to the next step and once you deal with that, it will be well".
To this end, Okotie said it was the turn of the South-South geopolitical zone to produce the president of the country in 2007, adding that such arrangement was in line with the principles of natural justice and fairplay.
He lamented that the South-South had not produced the president of the country, adding that it was only appropriate that the area be allowed to pick the slot in 2007.
According to him, 'This (South-South) is the only region that has not produced the president of the country and its only appropriate that the next president comes from the South-South.
'I am the most popular among all the candidates so far and there is no doubt about it that my chances are very bright."
Okotie said he could not realise his presidential bid in 2003 because the election was marred by massive irregularities.
He said, 'As you are all aware, the 2003 elections were marred by malpractices. There were no elections, the results were already determined before we went to the polls.
We saw that those who were in the corridors of power were determined to truncate the political process to frustrate the Nigerian people by the process of disenfranchising them, which I believe is what brought us to where we are today."
He described the Peoples Democratic Party as a business conglomerate, hence its being bedevilled by internal crisis.
THE PUNCH, Tuesday, September 13, 2005