Despite Okupe's conviction, I'll still move forward – Obi
Mr. Peter Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate, has said the conviction of his campaign organization's director general, Dr. Doyin Okupe, over alleged money laundering would not break his resolve to be Nigeria's president.
Obi said this during an interaction with journalists in Uyo at the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Akwa Ibom State Council Secretariat on Monday.
The labour party presidential candidate said he was undaunted by the conviction and would continue with his campaign and allow the due process of law to take its course.
"I am hearing about it (the conviction) just like you. I am still studying what is coming out of the court and everything. I believe in the rule of law. It is not going to demoralize me.
"Today, when I arrived in 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 do anything about people who are around me. "I will get there," Obi said.
On the impression that he does not have the political structure to win the presidential election, he said he was determined to dismantle the existing political structure in the country, which encouraged corruption and spread 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.
The LP presidential candidate added that his priority would be how to secure a united Nigeria and pull people out of poverty.
He said if elected president of the country in 2023, he would work towards the realization of the Ibaka Deep Seaport in Akwa Ibom.
He said, "My problem is how to create a future and make Nigeria a productive and not a consuming nation."
