Pastor Peters Osawaru Omoragbon while speaking to the media on national issues, maintained that the clamour for former President of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan to come and contest under APC is not a sign of love but an attempt to mess him up. CYRIACUS NNAJI has the excerpts:
Let’s meet you
My name is Pastor Peters Omoragbon
We want to find out, you are a pastor, an evangelist; do you have your own church? Let us clarify this.
Actually I co-founded a church known as Mountain of Solutions International Ministry and I pastored a branch of the church at Ipaja Road, Lagos State. But before I travelled abroad, I was also involved with another ministry called Agape Generation International Church, here in Mende. After a long while with my first ministry, the Mountain of Solutions, I heard a voice from God to separate myself for a while which I did and moved to Agape Generation International Church, I was there with my family for another four years, and God asked me to return back to Mountain of Solutions.
This is quite strange, for a minister to leave one church, go to another church and you wanna go back, so it takes grace and your being obedient to His word, he said I should return back, I went back, I was with that ministry up until 2016, when the General Overseer of the church passed on, After he passed on, the wife was made the General Overseer. Between 2016 and 2018, things were not what they should be, the spirit of God asked me to move again, then I started seeking the face of God as to what to do, but mind you I am not based in the country, I am based in United Kingdom. In UK I was able to set up an interdenominational ministry, He Rains Fellowship, it is a prayer ministry, we meet once a week, and on Sunday everybody goes to their various churches. That ministry was established in 2014.
When I come home I need a ministry I can relate with, I was believing God for God to direct me, He directed me back again to Agape Generation International Church, so today I am one of the pastors at Agape Generation, now my ministry in UK now becomes a branch of Agape Generation International Church.
We know your pedigree in politics, but on a light note, have you bought N100million nomination form from APC?
I know, that question is sarcastic, number one I have not bought any form to contest the next general election. One because I am not involved or interested in the 2023 general election or any general election for that matter. Why? I am only interested in governorship election of Edo State.
About the N100 million APC form, not just APC, but PDP also. And you will be surprised also that even some of the new political parties also though have not made known what they are charging their candidates but don’t be surprised if it runs to a tune of millions. But coming to APC and PDP asking a candidate to pay N100million to contest election. This is you offering yourself for service and somebody is asking you to pay N100million, so you can see that the ground is already set for corruption. Though a lot of them are deceiving us that the forms are bought for them by groups of people but we know the money was given by them to the so called groups. The group of people you said is buying nomination form, the groups have no name, not registered with corporate Affairs Commission, no bank account. Who donated what? It all goes to show the paucity of our electoral system whereby candidates are allowed that free hand to spend money they cannot account for. In a civilized clime where we are based every kobo or penny to be spent by politicians must be accounted for. If anybody donates money to a political party, that person must provide his account to the state.But today there is no checks and balances, and so everybody can do what they like, some people steal money, then give it to people.
With a lot happening in the political space, many people have said Nigerians deserve the kind of leaders they desire, they say Nigerians prefer Lucifer to Saints to rule them, your take
Well I am not one of those Nigerians. One, by my Christian background, the last thing I will want to wish was Lucifer; Lucifer is the other name for the devil. But I understand where they are coming from. A lot of people who come in the gab of preaching change, they are going to do better than previous government, they have disappointed the people, and so they don’t know who to look unto. But then I have a word for those Nigerians, just like in the days of Prophet Elijah, and those of King Ahab, after Prophet Elijah has destroyed the prophets of Baal, Jezebel was looking for how to kill Prophet Elijah, Prophet become discouraged, and then he was hiding. And then God called him, he said I am alone, God told him no, “I have 650 prophets who have refused to bow down to Baal and Jazebel. So what am I saying, the few people that have corrupted the system does not mean Nigeria still does not have saints, we have genuine Nigerians, I can count myself as one of those who are prepared, that is why till tomorrow, until we breathe our last breath, we will continue to seek office.
Having said that, you are just preempting my next question which is how do you see the political situation in Nigeria, the political atmosphere as we inch towards 2023?
The situation is dicey and it is very foreboding, because the ruling government, the PDP and APC are setting the ground for crisis. So today, with every one of them showing interest, and even asking the former president under PDP to cross over, it shows, yes the ruling government is not prepared for a peaceful transition, all they are preparing for is a crisis that come 2023 the election will not be conclusive, and when the election is not conclusive they will give room for some people to ask, okay, Buhari has not asked for third term, but there is nothing wrong to say okay, until the country is at rest, you cannot just leave a vacuum, so why don’t you please continue to rule.
Between PDP and APC we are having about 50 presidential candidates, and we only have 18 parties, we may be talking about 100 candidates, how do you see the number of presidential aspirants?
In the first place every Nigerian has a right to aspire to any office of his choice, it is a constitutional right, so if I am in APC or PDP and I believe that I am qualify to run for the presidency, I run, so far as I can meet the conditions. Now I want to give you back, about two years ago, INEC deregistered 74 political parties, what was the basis? They said it was because there were too many political parties to be put on the ballot, and as a result they delisted 74, and my party, National Conscience Party was one of those parties. Now what is INEC doing when in the face of the current political situation the two political parties presenting almost 50 aspirants and they are paying billions of Naira, INEC that supposed to have control, the electoral act empowers INEC to control the financial activities of political parties and aspirants. What has INEC done to call these parties to order? This charade that is going on between APC and PDP is it not enough for INEC to deregister PDP and APC? One they are making a mess of the entire political system, it is insulting, it is good for someone to aspire but the way and manner they are going about it, right now if funny.
Emefiele, the governor of central bank, he wants to be president while still working for us as the central bank governor, INEC materials are stored in his office, what is your take?
When President Buhari was going to contest after his first tenure, remember he was also the minister of Petroleum up till today, he did not resign that office, even I learn he is asking his current ministers to resign, he didn’t ask them to resign three years ago, I don’t know what is happening now. So what do you expect? He is copying from his master, so as far as he is concern he has that boldness, Emefiele knows what you and I do not know. Nobody to call him for questioning, but as for the right to contest, he has the right but to contest while still being a sitting central bank governor is an abnormality.
By the time Buhari was preparing to ascend the seat, the APC and all their foot soldiers, they described Jonathan with all manners of adjectives, that he was clueless, he has nothing in his brain even though has PhD and all that. Ironically now, the same people are wooing him to come and fly their flag, at the same time those who claim to buy form for him are the Fulani herdsmen, how do you look at all these scenario?
In the first place, when I heard that Jonathan was going to pick the APC ticket, what I said was that he was about to make the greatest mistake of his life. Why because when in 2015 he handed over governance to Buhari a lot of people even the western world thought that Nigeria was going to break during that election, that was why he made one statement and said his ambition is not worth the blood of one single Nigeria, and he disappointed many of his political hangers on when he conceded to Buhari publicly, Buhari himself was surprised. That earned Jonathan some level of respectability within the international community, which is why they are giving him a lot of honours because he handed over power peacefully. Now the APC are aware that the only Nigerian that has some level of respectability internationally today, is Jonathan, they are not asking him to run because they love Jonathan, they are asking him to run because they want to mess him up.
Let’s go to Edo State, looking at Obaseki-led Government, what are those things which ordinarily, if you had contested and won, you would have loved to do and which the present governor is not doing? In short what is wrong with Edo currently?
Everything is wrong with Edo State today, there is mounting total discontent among the people of Edo State. Even those who praised him, who hailed him, Hosanna. Hosanna in the last election, today, they are worst enemies. Now come back to what I would have done, take a look at the Roads in Edo today. Are you aware of the flooding? For this man to have been there for 6 years, he has not been able to address the drainage system that was began in the days of Ogbemudia. Ogbemudia in his time built an underground drainage, underground that is over six miles, then Oshiomhole came and he did a lot in terms of road construction, drainage too. But today, Edo State has become landlocked because there is nowhere for the water to flow out when it rains, vehicular movement is zero.
Then number two, take a look at the educational system in Edo State, he prides himself to have started what he called elearning or whatever, but tell me one school in Edo State that Obaseki has improved after Oshiomhole. Oshiomole did a lot of renovations in a lot of schools, my alma mater was one of the schools, New Era, Edakpolo Grammar School, after Oshiomhole those schools are all back to what they used to be. Three, look at the healthcare delivery. The Central Hospital at Sapele Road, the Central Hospital is what we call the state number one hospital. You have primary, secondary and you have tertiary. Oshiomhole renovated the central hospital with some millions even though they accused him of not, but then Obaseki has shut down that place and said he is relocating it to different place; you have not even built a new hospital to move the old one, but you are shutting down the existing one, I learnt that he wants to turn it to a motor park, but I don’t care whatever he does with it.
My plan if I was to be a governor of Edo State I would ensure that every local government has a functional health centre that would have modern equipment for admission and treatment, would have communications facilities, they would have standby ambulance, at least one in every local government, where if the condition is too much for them to handle, they would call and move that patient straight to the central. Now we have 18 local governments in Edo State, and I would have centralized them in a way that, we have three senatorial districts, then in each senatorial zone, I would set up a senatorial headquarter, then the health facility that would be in that Senatorial headquarter will be more equipped than the one at the local so that whatever that is not able to be managed is taken to the senatorial quarter, the reason being that you don’t just have to bombard the central with a lot of cases
What about security? Everyday today on the social media, Edo State is the only state that have refused to curtail the activities of Fulani herdsmen, our women are raped on daily basis in the farm, go to Ovia local government, there was a time the people had to block the Benin Express, on daily basis women go to the farm and you see Fulani herdsmen coming with their cattle to destroy their farmland and to also rape the women, and the government is not doing anything.
We have seen the passion you have for Edo people, to be there to direct things, but your political party is a major challenge, are you thinking of cross carpeting, since your party was delisted, we know you want to continue the legacy of the legal icon, Gani Fawehinmi, but constitutionally the party is no longer there, are you thinking of joining another political party?
Let me quickly speak on the state of my political party, National Conscience Party, it is very very important. When we were deregistered in 2020, 24 political parties went to court, NCP did not join those party in the court action, NCP instituted its own single case challenging INEC. It was heard at the Federal High Court in Lagos under one Justice Lema. Justice Lema heard the case and said he was going to give judgement in October 2020, up until date no judgement has been given on that case. Now the man was transferred to Kano, he is now in Kano. Our lawyers have written a petition against this Justice Lema. Our ground is so strong that they cannot be defeated, so he is afraid to give judgement, but he has no choice, he must give judgement. So I as a law abiding citizen I have a case in court because I am an interested party, I was a candidate, apart from being a member of the party, I contested election 2020, and so I am waiting for that judgement. We are pursuing it to the logical conclusion.
If and when any of us has the opportunity to rule a state, that state will become an example for other states, because we are going to govern by our TenCare programe which I called Tencare Plus One Programme.
