BREAKING: Okowa: Tinubu Should Be Allowed To Complete His Eight-Year Tenure For The Stability Of Nigeria
Former Delta State Governor and Atiku Abubakar’s running mate in the 2023 Presidential election, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, has endorsed President Bola Tinubu to complete a full eight-year tenure, urging Nigerians to support the administration till 2031 in the interest of national stability and continuity.
Okowa said this in an interview on ARISE NEWS on Tuesday, where he also said that Delta State leaders, as a political family, moved from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC) to restore Delta State to the corridors of Power in Nigeria.
Okowa, explaining that he believed in the need to allow any elected president, including Tinubu, the time required to implement their programmes, said, “For the stability of this nation, I also do believe that, yes, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was elected president in 2023, and for the stability of Nigeria, it is best for us to have him complete his eight-year tenure. Then the presidency can move back to the North. I believe that that is the right thing.”
Okowa, who recently, along with Governor Sheriff Oborevwori and other political leaders in Delta State defected from the PDP and into the ruling APC, said the decision was made after wide consultations. According to him, aligning with the party at the centre was the best strategic path for Delta State’s future.
He said, “We have a political family in the Delta state. Previously, we were in the PDP. But several things have been going on in the party, the People’s Democratic Party. While I do not want to join issues with people, but our stakeholders, our leaders in this state, have sat down to look at the events in the last several months. And because of the events that we see and the communications coming out from the leadership of the PDP at the moment, it did not appear to us that that was a proper political vehicle for us to continue in. Because it did not also appear to us that PDP was ready to be competitive in the 2027 elections.”
Okowa added, “Having looked at this very thoroughly, along with many other things that have been going on within the party, as to various court cases, as to who exactly is the national secretary of the party, and many other issues, we do not appear to be really ready for competition in the 2027 elections. So having looked at this, alongside the fact that we believe that as a political family in Delta state, we needed to be able to move ahead, to truly connect to the resources, as I did say yesterday, it’s not about a borrower. Yes, he’s the leader of the party as a governor. It’s not about me. It’s about the larger Delta state and the larger political family that we have.
“And I thought, in my own opinion, and in the opinion of the vast majority of leaders, because we had different levels of consultation. It was not just a question of a decision of the governor, or a decision between the governor and Dr. Okowa. We had various levels of meetings with several stakeholders, and even had to make consultations with some of our other leaders, who are not even politicians, before we came to this decision. And I think that our decision is right politically. I believe that we mean well for our people, and it is important for us to chart a path for ourselves that we think we can truly trust, and that could bring political gains to the people of Delta. And that was why the decision was taken.”
Okowa then said that for the past eight years under the PDP, Delta State had not been able to gain federal opportunities, a development he said hindered growth and project delivery despite his best efforts as governor.
“The fact is that at the moment, if you are a governor in a ruling party, you are likely to have greater access to goodwill and resources from the party at the centre. We have continued – I was governor in opposition for eight years. And I know that though we tried to do our best in the state, we could not lay our hands on a lot of things that would have been able to benefit at the federal level. Because it is obvious, it’s easier for you to be able to connect to Abuja and to be able to attract both resources and investment in your state if you are within the discourse, the floor of discourse at the national level. But as an opposition governor, you are not able to get all that you want.”
He went on to say, “I truly want to be in a situation where my political family in the state and Delta itself, Delta State as a whole, is returned to the corridors of power in Abuja. And I think it is in the best interest of Delta State for Delta State to be returned to the corridors of power in Abuja. And we do not seem to have it play out within the current PDP as it was. And we thought that there was a need for us to change the path of our politics in order to be able to achieve what we thought was best for our people.”
Okowa also dismissed criticisms from former Senate President Bukola Saraki, who had questioned the morality of his defection, saying that Saraki himself had crossed parties multiple times and therefore does not have “the moral right to even speak about my defection at all.”
