Popular pastor and presidential candidate of Fresh Democratic Party, Pastor Chris Okotie has described Nigeria’s current federal system as a “realistic piece of fakery”.
He also attacked the 1999 Constitution, describing it as “obsolete, retrogressive and subversive to the Nigerian cause”.
The outspoken Okotie made this known in an interview published by Sunday Vanguard.
Okotie reiterated his earlier stance that a substantive government could not solve the problems confronting the nation for “obvious reasons of parochial party considerations and entrenched partisan rivalries within the polity”.
He called for an interim government under his leadership to chart a course for the continued peaceful and prosperous existence of the nation through “reconciliation and restructuring”.
Without that, he said, “We will just be going round in a circle and the wilderness of retrogression. There is no way forward for Nigeria under this present system. We need a diversion from the current trend and it must be a new paradigm, a generational shift in its approach to political activities, laced with a lateral thinking that is different from the status quo.”
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Asked why he felt a caretaker government would perform better than a substantive government in this regard, Okotie said, “An extant or substantive government cannot carry out the responsibility of reconciliation and restructuring of Nigeria because of its partisan affiliation. You need a government that is neutral, one that is not encumbered with the sentiment of political affiliation that we have now. That is why I said that in the next elections, people should vote for me, so that when I become the President, I will set up this government.”
Asked what new ideas he had to implement through the interim government, Okotie said, “From the letters that I wrote, I made it clear that mine is a rescue mission.
“I explained that Nigeria must embrace a paradigm shift. I also talked about restructuring and reconciliation.
“I enumerated some of those areas adopted by our Constitution like structural federalism among others. These are things to be addressed. Our federalism is simply terminological inexactitude. It is a realistic piece of fakery. The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is obsolete, retrogressive and subversive to the Nigerian cause. It can no longer subsist as the legal protocol that guarantees the peaceful co-existence of autonomous ethnicity.
“No extant or substantive government can right these aberrations, for obvious reasons of parochial party considerations and entrenched partisan rivalries within the polity. I am not advocating a new concept of governance outside what we already know. What I am saying is that if Nigeria does not address these issues, we will have ourselves to blame.”
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