Ahead of the 2023 general election, veteran journalist and columnist, Chief Dele Momodu, Thursday, declared his ambition tp contest for the Office of the President on the platform on the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Momodu who made his intent known in a letter presented to national chairman of the party, Senator Iyorchia Ayu at the party’s secretariat, Abuja, urged the leadership of the party not to hastily pick its Presidential flag bearer to avoid what he called “the mistakes of the past.”
Dressed in a black babariga with a cap to match, Momodu described himself as the best and most prepared aspirant capable of giving the All Progressives Congress, APC, a run for their money.
The letter read: “Thanks for giving me the opportunity to present this epoch-making letter at very short notice. It is a palpable demonstration of your intellectual discipline, simplicity and cosmopolitan worldview, and our party is fortunate to have such a serious academic and patriot as our chairman at this momentous period in the life of our troubled country.
“In the last few days, there have been widespread speculations about my Presidential bid for a second time. I have been greatly humbled by the excitement already generated which reminds me of how it was 29 years ago when your good friend and my own adopted father, Chief Moshood Abiola, threw his hat in the ring. It is very obvious that Nigerians are eager to restore that promise of hope and the accompanying peace and joy that we lost.
“The time has come for full reconciliation and forgiveness and a closure of our ugly past. Nigeria urgently requires a reset and a total redirection. With this letter sir, I wish to humbly put the speculations to rest by coming to you with every sense of purpose and responsibility.
“After due consultations with my family, friends and some stakeholders, I have arrived at the decision to contest the 2023 Presidential election on the platform of our great party, PDP.
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“I therefore offer myself to the PDP as the best aspirant to turn the fortunes of our esteemed party and our well endowed country around. In this regard, and with a deep sense of humility and profound respect, I urge the party not to consider picking its candidate based on the usual considerations which had spectacularly failed our country in the past.”
“The mood of the teeming youths, and indeed every patriotic Nigerian, is the need to come out en masse to vote for our party.
“It is for this reason, that I invite our great party, PDP, to accept that it must search for a veritable flag bearer with the requisite leadership and visionary qualities that Nigerians now earnestly year for.
“I’m convinced that the time has come to seriously challenge and dislodge those politicians who have held our country to ransom by kidnapping, hijacking and destroying the future of our younger generation and generations yet unborn. I’m better prepared now than at the time of my first foray into the fray in 2011, and I am fully ready and certainly capable for the onerous tasks and responsibilities ahead.
“I wish to place on record my firm promise and commitment not to be harassed, bullied or intimidated by anyone who feels he or she can buy the whole of Nigeria with loads of cash fraudulently and illegally filched and taken from the Nigerian people.
“I am proud to follow in the best traditions of my heroic mentor, Chief Moshood Abiola, who had wanted to banish poverty in our land, but was disastrously disallowed from achieving this laudable objective. Nigeria has paid heavy price and penalty in the last 29 years and suffered untold agony and indignity as result of that tragic misadventure,
“Nigeria deserves much better than where we are now, and my appeal to fellow Nigerians is that we should collectively rescue our dear country from the suffocating claws of slave masters, overlords and tyrants, vociferously and vehemently reject any suggestion that Nigeria should continue to tread this dangerous path. The die is cast, and we must regain and take back our country fully and I unequivocally commit and dedicate myself to this cause.”
Fielding questions from journalists, Momodu pledged his readiness to mobilize Nigerians, North and South of the divide to return PDP to Aso Rock.
Also speaking, Sam Ohuabunwa, another Presidential hopeful called on the leadership of the party to look beyond petty interest in the selection of a Presidential candidate for the PDP.
He dismissed fears that old age could count against him, saying, “there are many young people chronologically, but yet they behave and act like old people because of their vision, because of their worldview. A young worldview is an exploratory worldview, a worldview that is able to entertain and accept a larger picture of the globe, be able to learn from each other, a mindset that is willing to try new things, to get into new opportunities.
“Secondly, to be able to discharge the function of office as a president or governor, you need to have a healthy body. You need to have a healthy soul. You need to have a healthy spirit, body, mind and soul must be together to be able to function in this office. This office of president is a serious office. You must have experienced in managing many things at the same time.
“It is not to take six months to form your cabinet, take six months to plan how you are going to work. I have the experience and I have been trained. I may belong to the older group but my spirit, my heart is of a young person, and I understand how to motivate people to achieve result because the job of a president is the job of a CEO, and the work of the CEO is, first and foremost, to set a vision,” he said.
If given the nod, the foremost businessman promised to prioritize competence in the composition of government think thank.
“We will give you sufficient time to ensure you have a competence. If you don’t have the competence, you could do better elsewhere. We will move you from there and bring someone because we measure ourselves by results, not by what we say, not by intention and not by wishes.
“We need to think about our government as business whereby, we have a contract with the citizens,” he stated.
“I am coming to lay the foundation for proper unity of our nation, to create a level playing ground where every child born in every part of this country will have the same opportunity like the other child to achieve his potential the way it happens the United States of America,” he added.
In his brief remark, Ayu tasked the aspirants to take their message to the grassroots, noting that a solid political base is vital to winning election of the magnitude of a Presidential contest.
“You must work hard to build the party because for you to run for office, you must have a strong platform, a united party, a strong platform, a focused party with which you can go into battle.
“There will be a level playing field for all candidates. We don’t have any special candidate, we don’t have a preferred candidate. It is the party members who will decide and if at the end of the day, the party members vote for you that you are the one they want, we will queue behind you,” he assured.
