..As Ayu assures of level playing ground.
By Myke Uzendu, Abuja
National Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Iyorchia Ayu has assured all Presidential aspirants of level playing ground following the visit of Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa and Dele Momodu to the party’s leadership to notify them of their intentions to run for the Presidency.
Speaking to journalists at the party’s headquarters, Abuja on Wednesday after receiving Momodu, Ayu assured the aspirants that the leadership has no preferred candidate. He assured him of level playing field and charged him to go and build a formidable platform that will fortify them for the battle during the general election.
He said, “The party welcomes all candidate. Our party is a great party that is why people like you have not only joined the party but wants to contribute your services to the country. We know the work you have done in the media over the years, you are certainly a respected media personality in the country. You tried your hands in politics in the past and I hope that you will continue to support the party.
“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” Ayu said.
Addressing the press, Ohuabunwa said that he will run the country profitably as a company and ensure that the country returns to the path of prosperity and progress.
He debunked insinuations that he is cut up by age for the number one position, insisting that has both mental, physical and intellectual ability to pilot the affairs of the country.
“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, because the job of a president is the job of a CEO, and the work of the CEO is, first and foremost, to set the vision, where are you going and sell the vision and then appoint lieutenants, in the companies, we call them directors or general managers, set the vision, this is where we’re going in the next two, three years, then set the KPIs every quarter, this is where we ought to be and then scale them resources, give them the training, mobilize them.
“For me, that’s the experience you need to run a country, not necessarily chronological age. So understand what young people are, I am young in my heart, in my spirit, in my physique and my ability to do the job”.
The aspirant who is an industrialist and convener of New Nigeria Group said that the agitation in the South East will not be a deterrent to his aspiration but should be seen as one of the malaise threatening the foundation of the country.
“The issues in the south east are national issues. There’s nothing unique about the south east, what is happening in the northwest, what is happening in the south, North East, what is happening in the middle belt, they are all symptomatic of the same problem, foundational issues with Nigeria. And all we need to do is to look at them as national problems, when you look at them as ethnic problem, we miss it, they are national problems.
“We need to sit there and say, this was not the way our country was run by the founding fathers of this country. They organized this country in a manner that allow for mutually satisfying relationship. A relationship that is normal, actually satisfying, including marriage is starting to break down. So don’t pretend about it.
“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”.
Also addressing journalists, Momodu who is the publisher of Ovation Magazine said that he will not be intimidated by money bags who wants to buy over the presidency.
“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.
“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 Presidential election will hold around October 2022 while the Presidential election will hold in February 16, 2023.
