2019 presidency: Present your son for president, go home – Okonkwo tells Buhari

The key-note speaker at the recent gathering of the South East, South South and Middle Belt, tagged “handshake across the Niger” Alban Ofili-Okonkwo, has told President Buhari to present his son as a presidential aspirant in 2019 and resign.

Okonkwo, the Chairman of Autobahn, noted that Buhari was in his 30s when he started leading Nigeria and is still controlling the affairs of the country, adding that it was time to say no to the development.

While fielding questions from Vanguard, the business mogul said it was time for Buhari to present his son to Nigeria and go home.

He said, “I am not concerned. The people, who know me and my antecedents, know that for me to have been invited, it showed that the event was not ethnic in any way.

“My first grandson is Yoruba, my first granddaughter is Yoruba. If I am an entrepreneur, what defines me is what I do and how I do it, not my tribe or my tongue.

“I have never run a company where everybody in the company comes from my geopolitical zone, it is not possible. Competence is what we are looking for because we live in an international highway of knowledge.

“No matter anybody’s pigmentation, height, size or where he comes from, if a company is looking for someone to be employed, a competent person will be the one to be employed no matter where the person is.

“That is tomorrow’s world and the world that Nigeria needs to join. Unfortunately, our leaders till now, are giving us what they can.

“I think it is time for this generation to say no to that. President Muhammadu Buhari was in his 30s when he started handling the affairs of Nigeria and in his late 70s he is still handling the affairs of Nigeria.

“For God’s sake, he should give us his son and go home. Whether his son is Fulani does not matter, what matters is competence.

“If he has trained a son to the extent that he understands, and can connect with my children and convince them to come to Nigeria to build a new nation, he should give him to us.

“We need a new nation where we can get more money than our oil wealth can give us through quality leadership. The new Nigeria should not be a nation where we will depend on what we dig out from the ground to survive.

“If at their own time it was good for a 36-year old boy to become a leader, why can’t it be possible now? I am in my 60s and I am in retirement.

“The minimum I can do is to make sure that those in their 30s and 40s take their turn by saying enough is enough. That will enable people, who can create value to multiply.

“It is easy to build network in value creation. On the social media there is high breed of interaction on account of knowledge by Nigerian professionals.

“When Buhari went abroad for treatment because he could not get better treatment in Nigeria, was it a Fulani person that treated him there?

“He came back different and happy because he was treated well as a result of knowledge and a good infrastructure. We need a President who would understand the importance of knowledge and infrastructure, who will no longer look at tribe, tongue, and faith, who will understand the landscape of Nigeria and seek inspiration from the wonders of nature. And I think the time for that has come.”