Peter Obi, the presidential candidate for the Labour Party (LP), has said that the conviction of Doyin Okupe, the head of his campaign organization, for money laundering will not change his mind about running for president of Nigeria.
On Monday, Mr. Obi said this when he met with journalists in Uyo at the office of the Akwa Ibom State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
The LP presidential candidate said that the conviction didn’t bother him and that he would keep running for office and let the law do its job.
“I, too, have heard about it (the conviction). I am still looking into what is going on in court and with everything else. I believe that laws should be followed. It won’t make me feel bad about myself.
“When I got to Akwa Ibom today, someone asked me why I hadn’t been using my plane since it had been grounded and all. I told him that nothing makes me feel down.
“I’ve never stayed where they dropped me off, because if I had, I would have been there before.
“In this election, they can do whatever they want to the people around me if they want to. Mr. Obi said, “I will get there.”
A PremiumTimes report says that, in response to the idea that he doesn’t have the political structure to win the presidential election, he said he was determined to break up the country’s current political structure, which he said encouraged corruption and made Nigerians poor.
“The building they have now is the building we want to tear down. It is the way that crime works. It is the structure that led to 133 million people living in poverty.
“It is the structure that led to 20 million children not going to school. Nigeria now has a higher infant mortality rate than India because of the way it is built. We want to destroy that structure because it will bring down Nigeria,” he said.
Mr. Obi said that his main goal would be to keep Nigeria together and help people get out of poverty.
He said that if he were elected president in 2023, he would work to make the Ibaka Deep Seaport in Akwa Ibom a reality.
“My problem is how to make Nigeria a productive country instead of a country that only consumes,” he said.
