Presidential Candidate of the United Democratic Party (UDP), Barr. Godson Okoye, in this interview spoke on his mission and plans for Nigeria. He said among others that he will reposition the country declaring a state or emergency in five key sectors of security, health, agriculture, power and education, if elected.
By Jude Opara
His experience in the race so far
It has been a rough one, very challenging and difficult but we have to stay on it because difficult things are also done by people and with the kind of bad precedent we have which is also a carry-over of the normal Nigerian attitude. We have bad attitude to very serious and sensitive things and that creates a multiplier effect in other negative directions.
It is only in Nigeria that you are running an election and people expect you to give them money instead of raising money for you. In other climes and civilized places, people come together to raise money for you. Running election is likened to pregnancy and child birth, a woman who is about entering labour, you can’t tell her to make you dinner or to go and fetch water for you, that is how election is.
You led a team of political parties and stakeholders to ask for the postponement of the election initially scheduled for February 14 citing some lapses on the part of the INEC. Today, are you satisfied with the level of readiness for this election?
There is no person that will say he is not happy with the recent development in the country and the acceptance of INEC and of course the general opinion of Nigerians that it is good that at least more people have been able to get their voter cards.
Important election
In other climes that will be an item for me to campaign with because I made it possible, together with some of my colleagues, for over 15 million voters to have their voters cards ahead of a very important election. They would have been disenfranchised.
Some people said you were speaking for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who probably didn’t want to be seen as pushing for the postponement.
Presidential Candidate of the United Democratic Party (UDP), Godson Okoye
That is another bad attitude. why would you want to input what is not there? I should be able to explain my position and then it should be understood. This party has been existing since 1998, I have not joined the PDP, I have not joined the APC and if I want to join the PDP, I have a lot of friends there but I have been here.
We have had not had a senator, not had minister or a governor but I have been using my resources to run the party and I think it is unfair for people to input such things to me. We are people that should be celebrated and that is again the bad attitude I talked about, people like us are not remembered, we are not celebrated.
But they will celebrate somebody who jump from one party to another after eight years and then because he just left his party he has become a saint. How do you do that and say you want to encourage democracy?
Do you see yourself as a candidate to beat in this election?
Whether I win or not what is important is that I have been able to pass my message across to the people. If I win fantastic, a Kenyan is not going to be the president of Nigeria it will still be a Nigerian and that is why I say we need to imbibe the right attitude to politics and political contest. We do everything in the interest of Nigeria and there is nowhere in the world where you use tribal and religious sentiments as the main issue and truly develop.
What will be your cardinal points if you win this election?
We will declare a state of emergency in five areas: security, health, agriculture, power and education. If we tackle these five areas we will have a quantum economic leap to move to other levels because security, health, agriculture and education are key factors of development.
The Chinese spent $22 billion dollars to build three gorges dam that generate 22,330 mega watts of energy. We have spent about $25 billion dollars and we have not even scratched the surface.
So we must open up the place to allow those that have the capacity and will to come in. It is a scandal that we are still battling to have 6,000 mega watts. Again look at our Army, you don’t have up to 200,000 battle ready men in the Army, Navy and Air Force, that is scandalous why can’t we have one million soldiers and two million policemen?
So, the system must change in line with those who understand the problems of the country not those who are guessing or those who entered there by accident.
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