A former Governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke, has said he will contest for presidency in the 2019 election.
Duke, who declared his interest for the job at the third Mike Omotosho annual lecture titled: ‘Mellinials as Protagonists in Nation Building,” on Sunday night in Abuja, promised to kick-start the process at the right circumstances.
According to him, “I am entitled to run for the presidency of
this country. I am entitled to it. Only on right circumstances I will
aspire for it. I don’t shy away from responsibility, only the right
circumstance, I will aspire for presidency of this country. I have what
it takes to be president of this country.” Duke, however, challenged the
youths to fully participate in the electoral process by getting their
Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) and sensitising others ahead of 2019
general election, rather than loafing around, looking for who to heap
their problems on”.
The former governor charged that “It was high time Nigerians begun
to project people with the technical know-how to take the country to the
Promised Land.” He said: “I hear young people say to me that why would
there spend hours queuing and casting their votes when at the end their
votes won’t count. And I tell that if their parents conceived them they
never gave up on them considering the high mortality rate so why would
there not take a chance in building this nation?
“We had young leadership at one stage or the other. Even in our
first republic, besides the likes of Awolowo, Tafawa Balewa, M. T. Mbu
was in his twenties when he became a minister. “Gowon was 30 when he
became the head of state. It comes back to the disaster therein because
most of them didn’t have experience in governance, which led us into
war. We need the combination of both.What I think we should be doing is
to ensure a government that is youth-friendly to provide opportunities
because we need to groom the next set of leadership” he said.
