From Joseph Obukata, Warri
Olorogun Kenneth Gbagi, former Minister for State Education, has said that only those who want to enslave their children to a northern oligarchy would consider the Atiku-Okowa joint presidential ticket in the 2023 general election.
Addressing reporters at his country home Oginibo, Ughelli South council area, Gbagi said that the Atiku-Okowa presidential ambition was ‘dead on arrival’, arguing that it is the turn of southern Nigeria to produce the next president after President Muhammadu Buhari.
Gbagi, who is the governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Delta State, said that as a lawyer who knows the place of equity and justice in law, it would be unfair of him to support Okowa.
He said that he would rather give his support to Prince Adewole Adebayo of the SDP or Peter Obi of the Labour Party, who he said has also shown capacity.
Gbagi contended that the presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar, and his counterpart in the APC, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, are obsolete and can no longer handle governance.
“We say the North should do one term which is eight years and the election should come back to the South. And unfortunately for me, I am from the South. I will support a presidential candidate from the South. So let us not waste time. I don’t know how to pretend. As we speak today, there are three presidential candidates from the South part of Nigeria,” he stated.
“There is Adebayo who is the presidential candidate of SDP from Ondo state. He is a young lawyer, a 50 years old man, very vibrant. In fact, in all the interviews, he is the best man Nigeria can ever produce as a presidential candidate.
“You have my friend, Peter Obi who to me again, is a very good material. I mean he came to us at the Minister forum to grant an interview just as Atiku came to us as well. I belong to the Minister’s Forum of Nigeria. They all came to us to convince us to work for them. Peter Obi came and he’s not unsound. I can tell you that.
“So you have Adebayo of SDP, you have Peter Obi of Labour and then you have the old man who I believe ought not to be contesting the election, the APC’s ‘Jagbaban’ and then Atiku.
“Atiku can no longer stand very well to press the computer. Tinubu can no longer stand to press the computer so if you people want this country to go forward, you have the three of them to play with but my choice and if you are my friend is to vote for SDP.
“So what I am saying to you is that I am a Southerner and I will support a Southerner. I ask all Southerners, all the churches, all the teachers and pensioners and everybody in the South that if you don’t support the shift of power from the North to the South, your children will die slaves.
“Your children will die as slaves. We cannot, we all own this country, we believe in this country and I don’t hate any Northerner. Some of you who came to this party saw emirs, and people from the North who are my great friends but we agreed once North, once South. Any of you who do anything to thwart that effort to bring governance to the South of Nigeria, I don’t care who is in the South. Like I said Adebayo is there, Peter Obi is there and an old man, if he wants to be in politics, is there.
“We must bring the government to the South for eight years and take the government back to the North for eight years. That’s the most equitable thing as a lawyer I will support. Anything to the contrary is dead on arrival. Nobody will support that”.
He said that the 2023 general election would not be on the premise of political parties but personality, adding that he doesn’t need to set up the structure of SDP in every nook and cranny of the state to win the election.
“The election we are going to hold in 2023 will not be on the basis of structure. Market women will vote, they don’t have any structure, school teachers will vote, they don’t have any structure, pensioners will vote, they don’t have any structure, churches and churchgoers will vote and they don’t have any structure”, he reiterated.