2023: Elder statesman Afe Babalola echoes Okotie’s interim government option

Elder Statesman and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chief Afe Babalola, has re-echoed the governance structure proposed by the Pastor of the Household of God Church, Rev Chris Okotie, to get Nigeria out of her present political quagmire.

Babalola, founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), warned that the future of Nigeria remained at risk with the 1999 Constitution, warning that it would be very dangerous to hold another election in 2023 without having a “people’s constitution” to replace the “foisted” 1999 Constitution.

The legal luminary who spoke to journalists in Ado-Ekiti on Sunday, said the worsening security and economic situations in Nigeria called for a radical approach to reverse the ugly trend.

He consequently advocated for an interim government after President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure to midwife the birth of the new people’s constitution, which would save the country from imminent doom.

According to him, members of the interim government should be drawn from former presidents, vice presidents, some selected ministers and governors, delegates of professional bodies such as NBA, NMA, ASUU, NLC, NUJ and civil society organisations.

READ: I’m who I am because of your confidence in me – Amb Eniola Ajayi to Okotie

“I believe that whoever is seeking elections as a president, governor and National Assembly member should not be more than 60 years, with good and sound health, sound education, experience, good human relations, friendliness and firmness, vision and mission, among others.

“The new constitution shall provide for part-time legislators and not full time, and the attendant wasting of resources, that will be collecting allowances and not salaries; propose a federal system of government rather than presidential system and a parliamentary system with a unicameral legislature.

“We need a new set of leaders in our nation; leaders who will not see themselves as Mr Know All and who will not see themselves as above everyone,” he said.

But unlike Babalola, Okotie offered himself to lead the interim government.

In 2018, towards the 2019 general elections, Okotie had written letters to the chairmen of both the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), asking the two parties to adopt him as their presidential candidate.

READ: Okotie cautions Buhari on being high-handed, backs #EndSARS protest

“The letters were calculated at drawing attention to the realities that confront our nation, which I called existential threats for which I made overtures to these bigger parties, that for the sake of our nationalistic existence as a people they must be willing to lay aside partisan sentiments and partisan affiliations for the greater good of our nation because at this juncture of our existence, no political or partisan equilibrium will deliver Nigeria from the present quagmire.

“I wrote to them saying that we need to embrace a new paradigm that revolves around an interim government or an ad hoc caretaker government with the responsibility of addressing these existential threats. They have proceeded in the natural sequence of events to obtaining their flag bearers, but I still maintain that the realities in the future will still compel them to come back to the Chris Okotie proposition because that is the only practical way forward.

“The government that I propose is going to be by consensus. What that means is that when I have emerged I will set up a government that would address these aberrations. It will be an interim government because it will not involve the legislature, governors, ministers and commissioners. It will not be the usual governmental prolixity built after a cycle of elections because these threats that confront our nation is so fundamental that only a government of this nature can address them.

“That is why I talk about restructuring the moribund constitution that we have and reconciliatory moves that must be made to bring our people together to form a cohesive nation. These things can only be achieved by an interim government. We will do this by consensus; the present constitution will be suspended and the government becomes a de facto government which then later proceeds later on to become de jure by consensus. It is very easy to do,” Okotie, who had prophesied that he would be Nigeria’s president, told Sun newspaper in an interview in 2018.