Rochas Okorocha gives 2 conditions for contesting for presidency in 2019
– Governor Rochas Okorocha said he has benefitted from Nigeria’s union
– The governor said if 10 million Nigerians endorse him, he will contest for presidency
– He noted that the north gave him education while the west empowered him
Governor Rochas Okorocha has declared that he will not be running for the presidency on 2019 if President Muhammadu Buhari chooses to seek for re-election.
Vanguard reports that the Imo state governor also said even if the president chooses not to run, he would still not seek the position unless 10 million Nigerians endorse him. Okorocha gave these conditions in Owerri, the Imo State capital, when he addressed a youth delegates from all the geo-political zones in the country.
He said he was in politics not for the sake of greed but for selfless reasons. He noted that although he had Igbo parentage, he was a detribalised Nigerians who had benefitted from the country’s union.
He said: “I will not run in 2019 if President Muhammadu Buhari will be running. Even at that, I will not also run at any given time unless 10 million Nigerians endorse me.
“May I remind all of you that my joy this evening has no bounds for the singular fact that the Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Ijaw, northern minorities, western and eastern minorities, Muslims and Christians and others can sit down in a roundtable and speak like members of one family. If only for this, my mission for this nation is today achieved.
“I am an Igbo man with Igbo parentage. I was born and raised in the north. The north gave me education, guaranteed my childhood, even when I was not worthy to be called anybody in this world.
“I did all my schooling— primary, secondary and tertiary— in the northern part of this country. I finished and needed to be successful and wealthy.
My encounter with someone from the South-West gave me the financial empowerment.
“So you can see that in my person, I have no choice whatsoever but to be a detribalized Nigerian, having been born of Igbo parentage, raised up by the North and empowered by the West.
Nigeria remains my constituency. “Most of you may not know that I am not in politics for self-aggrandizement or as a means to seek livelihood.
I am in this job for the glory of the job, not for the profit and for the honour of this job, not for the wealth in it.
“I believe that one day it will become a manifest truth that somebody somewhere really cared for this nation. “In my quiet time have I gone through lamentations, thinking about our nation and particularly.
So is the youth of Nigeria, believe me, if our youths are not alright, our nation can never be alright.” Meanwhile, the presidency countered a claim by Governor Okorocha that Buhari will return from London in two weeks.
Okorocha reportedly said this after he led other governors to visit Buhari who has been in London for months following an undisclosed ailment. The presidency, according to Punch, said there was not fixed date for Buhari’s return to Nigeria.
