Dokpesi Lied, Says Jonathan Campaign
•Bakare: Buhari’s best Northern aspirant
From Chuks Okocha in Abuja and Omololu Ogunmade in Lagos, 10.10.2010

The Jonathan/Sambo Presidential Campaign Organisation has dismissed claims by the Director-General of the Ibrahim Babangida Campaign Organisation, Chief Raymond Dokpesi, that he was being persecuted for refusing to head the president’s campaign.


In a statement by the Director of Media and Publicity, Mr. Sully Abu, the organisation said the claim defies “political commonsense” as “a position is normally given to someone outside the geographical zone of the aspirant. Dokpesi, being from the South South as is President Jonathan, could never have been considered for such a position”.


And commenting on the 2011 presidential race yesterday, Convener of the Save Nigeria Group (SNG), Pastor Tunde Bakare, described the aspirant on the platform of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, as “the most respected presidential aspirant from the North”.


The statement debunking Dokpesi’s claims: “The attention of the Goodluck/Sambo Presidential Campaign Organization has been drawn to certain utterances by the Director General of the Babangida Campaign Organization, Chief Raymond Dokpesi, to the effect that he was suffering an imagined political persecution because he declined to head our campaign organization.


''Nothing could be farther from the truth. At no time was Chief Dokpesi considered for such a role. He never made it to anybody’s short list or long list.”


Dokpesi, who once said the president’s men were after his life, had alleged at the weekend that it was his refusal to head Jonathan’s campaign that led to his being quizzed by the State Security Service (SSS) over the October 1 bombings.


He said: “My point of departure with Goodluck Jonathan as it were is the fact there is a zoning policy in the party and that zoning policy envisages that we will have eight years of presidency for the North, eight years of presidency for the South.”


In the meantime, Bakare who made the remarks on Buhari, during a state of the nation broadcast in Lagos, solicited support for Buhari, describing him as the best presidential aspirant because his track records as a former head of state and Chairman of Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) portray him as an incorruptible individual.


He added that he is the only presidential aspirant from the North who does not have a label of corruption hanging on his neck.
He dismissed calls for a generational shift from the old to the younger generation as invalid, arguing that what Nigeria needed at the moment was not a generational shift, but rather “a leadership and paradigm shift as well as generational integration”.


According to him, given the magnitude of support that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) commanded across the country, only alignment of forces among other political forces could stop the ruling party from seizing power again next year.


Bakare, who is also the pastor of the Latter Rain Assembly in Lagos, emphasized the need to encourage Buhari’s party, CPC, to become a national party, so that it could be easier for the party to wrest power from the ruling PDP, which he alleged had ruined the country in the last 11 years.


He called on all and sundry to commence the process of national reconstruction, warning that by 2014, when the country would be due to celebrate the centenary anniversary of its emergence, the country might have ceased to exist if there are no spirited efforts to rebuild the country now.


Bakare said the task at the moment was to ensure that the best of the North (Buhari) and the best of the South, whom he said had not yet been identified, are fielded at the forthcoming general election.


The clergy man explained that his support for Buhari was a product of a survey carried out on all presidential aspirants which he said singled him out as a man of integrity and character even though he had records of blunders when he was head of state.


He expressed shock at the insinuation that former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, will run on the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), saying it sounds so ironic that Ribadu who investigated the former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and made allegations of corruption against him now chooses to run in Tinubu’s party.He said a corrupt tree “cannot bear good fruit”.

mbulela:

commenting on the 2011 presidential race yesterday, Convener of the Save Nigeria Group (SNG), Pastor Tunde Bakare, described the aspirant on the platform of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, as “the most respected presidential aspirant from the North”.

LouisThoru:

who is he for us to believe? The man who said there will be blood in 1999 if OBJ was sworn in as President.

Gbawe:

I respect Bakare as he stood up for what was right recently while cowards hid away but I am , first and foremost, a supporter of Ribadu. While I agree that Buhari may be more credible overall I think Ribadu is not far behind. I think Buhari is a harder sell accross Nigeria than Ribadu. Buhari may not signify enough of a departure from the past to raise the revolutionary zeal in Nigerians that will get them to go out, vote and protect their vote. We must remember that Buhari has tried twice to become President recently. Nigerians need something/someone new they can believe in with total passion .  Nothing less will be require to defeat the PDP . I think Ribadu can deliver a sense of hope better than Buhari and I think this is why the likes of Akeredolu (former NBA boss) and many respected individuals endorse Ribadu with gushing enthusiasm . That is my opinion and I expect that others may think otherwise.

A self-avowed Islamic fundamentalist of the most extreme and depraved variety, Ayatollah Mullah Buhari is on record as having REPEATEDLY bellowed his rabid support for the forcible imposition of Islamic Sharia amputation law on Nigeria in its entirety, presumably after an envisioned Jihad holy war to exterminate all Christians and animists from that conquered nation of 120 million souls.

Arosa:

This is the only reason I am hesitant about Buhari.