By Bolade Omonijo & Kayode Matthew
Posted to the Web: Wednesday, December 27, 2006

In an interactive session with journalists in Lagos last night, Rev. Okotie who polled more than 30 per cent of the votes of Nigerians in a popularity contest that pitched him against other eminent Nigerians including Generals Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida, Governors Donald Duke, Victor Attah, Peter Odili, Orji Kalu, Professors Pat Utomi and Akunyili, among others, said he would declare war on crime, harness the unity of Nigerians and ensure that the diversity of the country was turned into a positive tool for national renewal.

The interactive session was jointly organised by Silverbird Television and Vanguard Newspapers.
His words: “Security will be a major priority of our programmes. We have to reopen the Bakassi case by re-examining, revisiting it to know what happened. What we had was a connivance of the government of Nigeria with the international community.”

Rev. Okotie pledged that, if elected, there would be cohesion and realignment between the government and the governed. He explained that other sectors of the economy and society that would engage his attention including boosting energy supply and spearheading agricultural revolution.
On agriculture, he said: “My government will improve agriculture because it is very important. We will introduce farm stratification mechanism by which seedlings will be sold to farmers.”

He criticised a situation by which money was just being thrown into the energy sector which he said had become a bottomless pit. Sounding positive that the sector could be turned around in the overall interest of the national economy, the Fresh Democratic Party candidate said: “It can be done. We will first get a realistic picture of the situation on ground. There has to be a scientific approach to it and independent power producers and state governments must be involved. We will also try alternative power sources.
“We will establish a government that has a human face, that is all encompassing and all involving,” he said.

Waxing philosophical much of the time, the FDP candidate described God as the author of change. He, however, admitted that God requires human instrumentality to effect changes in the affairs of men. “If you sit down and do nothing, this country will disintegrate. Nigerians have lost faith in the democratic setting,” he said.

Reacting to a suggestion that as a pastor he might not fit into the mould of the Nigerian politician, he said the fact that he had been an artiste, a Pastor and now a politician added up to what had become “the Chris Okotie trajectory.”

He explained that anyone who genuinely wanted to understand his mission in politics as a pastor should read the Biblical account of Melchizedek who as a priest was also King of Salem.
According to Okotie who unlike the average politician turned up for the session in a shirt and tie as against politicians’ penchant for flowing gown, “the Lord Jesus Christ said He is the Way, the Truth and the Life, that is a philosophy that we can conceptualise. The Way represents ideology, Truth represents veracity and Life, animation and galvanising impetus. Christ epitomises all these and I have been engaged in all these.”

Asking rather rhetorically, Rev. Chris Okotie called attention to the fresh approach that he had brought to politicking and declared that the only way forward for the country was to have a candidate who could be trusted and who would bring the necessary changes to the machinery of government.