The Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has said that Doyin Okupe’s most recent convictions won’t change his determination to lead Nigeria in 2023.
This was said by Obi on Monday at a media interaction in the Akwa Ibom State capital, Uyo, stressing that Okupe’s conviction for alleged money laundering had not deterred him.
“I am hearing about it (the conviction) just like you. I am still studying what is coming out of the courts and everything. I believe in the rule of law. It is not going to demoralize me.
“Today when I arrived Akwa Ibom somebody asked me why I haven’t been using my aircraft because it has been grounded and all that and I said to him that nothing demoralizes me.
“In my life I have never stayed where they dropped me otherwise I would have been where they dropped me before. This election if they like let them anything about people who are around me. I will get there”.
On the impression that he does not have political structure to win the presidential election, he said he was determined to dismantle the existing political structure in the country which encourages corruption and spreads poverty among Nigerians.
“The structure they have today is the structure we want to destroy. It is the structure of criminality. It is structure that produced 133 million people living in poverty, it is the structure that produced 20 million out-of-school children. It is the structure that has made Nigeria surpass India in infant mortality. It is the structure that will destroy Nigeria and we want to destroy that structure”, he said.
If elected, the LP presidential candidate promised to try to see the Ibaka Deep Seaport in Akwa Ibom State become a reality.
Obi insisted that he wants to turn Nigeria into a producer rather than a consumer nation, pointing out that the nation’s over-dependence on crude oil is to blame for its decline.
