By Ben Ogbemudia, Abuja
Ahead People’s Democratic Party presidential primary in May this year, the former Senate president, Bukola Saraki on Monday evening obtained his presidential nomination form at the party National Secretariat.

The nomination and expression of interest form was purchased for him by some young professionals and business people as part of their support for his candidacy in the 2023 Presidential election.

Saraki said looking at the diversity of those who gathered represent, another symbolic message he will take away is that as far as the youths are concerned, what is needed to develop in Nigeria is not where people come from or what religion they subscribe to.

“It is about having the competence, determination, and patriotism to initiate good measures and have the courage of conviction to follow through with the plans. Your charge to me is to go there and make all Nigerians – young and old, northerners and southerners, Muslims, Christians, and people of other religions, operators in the private and public sectors, and members of different political parties – to join hands and fix Nigeria.

“My dear professionals and entrepreneurs who constitute this noble group gathered here today, I am almost emotional witnessing this event where you young people gather your hard-earned money amounting to a whooping N40 million to purchase nomination and expression of interest forms in support of my candidacy.

” I am told that in buying the forms, many of you contributed N200,000, N500,000 and and the highest is N2m. This initiative and noble effort are perhaps unprecedented in the history of Nigerian politics.

” The tradition is either for the aspirant or a group of wealthy friends to come together to purchase the nomination forms because of the huge funds required.

” Your effort has beaten some of my friends who have been talking about doing this for me to the mark.

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” I appreciate this your effort far more than I would have appreciated if any of my friends has purchased the forms.

“My appreciation derives from the fact that your effort is essentially a genuine demonstration of your commitment, belief, patriotism, and sincerity in my ability and visions. You have taken money that you could have re-invested into your young businesses or spent to enjoy the various luxuries which hard-working young people may find necessary once in a while to procure these forms.

” What you have done is a symbolic message that you are mandating me to go out to the field and work hard among all our leaders, delegates, and other stakeholders to win the PDP presidential ticket come May as well as subsequently follow up with decisive victory in the general elections in February 2023.

” With your action today, I do not have an option but to listen to the voice of the youths who represent 62 percent of the over 200 million Nigerians. That is why I want to promise that If I become the President of Nigeria, all positions of Ministers of State in the cabinet will be occupied by youths. This is a promise that I will not fail because I believe the ideas of the youths are needed to drive modern development efforts. And you know from my record that I have the boldness to implement this promise.

“Without unfolding all the plans here because we will soon formally hold a public declaration to which all of you are hereby invited, I want to once again express my happiness over this gesture. I so much appreciate it and I will not take it for granted.

Earlier, Abubakar Dan Musa, leader of the young professionals said they are not politicians and therefore non-party members, rather, they are young professionals and entrepreneurs who believed in this great country, Nigeria.

“We are from different parts of the country. We all worship one God in different ways. Our world views are as diverse as this country to which we are citizens. However, we have a common agenda and common goal. We believe in Nigeria. We want Nigeria to develop. We want Nigeria to serve the interest of all Nigerians.

“Thus, after extensive deliberations, we have concluded that the situation of our country is so far from what it should be if we have the right leadership. The country is not running as a functional entity that can bring the best out of her citizens and provide the best for the generality of the people.

” We are particularly unhappy that the country is not providing the right atmosphere for the millions of its youths to serve as agents of development. Instead, many of our compatriots are being forced to go into negative activities because the system is not encouraging them to utilise their positive potential.

” It is for these reasons that we concluded that we should not leave the process leading to the emergence of the next President of our country to only politicians. We have decided to get involved right from the pre-primary election period. We are determined to ensure that only good, solid, forward-looking, and visionary candidates emerge to vie for the February 2023 presidential elections.

” We want candidates who understand the needs of the business group and can initiate policies, programmes, and projects that will encourage the growth of businesses, particularly, small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs). We want a candidate that will create a synergy between the private and business sectors. We want a man who will naturally earn the respect of the international community and the confidence of foreign and local investors and get them to establish factories and businesses. We want a candidate who understands that job creation and wealth creation is a sine qua non for the survival of our country and that only by creating the right atmosphere for the private sector can this be achieved. We want a candidate who is not too old, who appreciates the needs of young people and therefore will create a bridge between the old and the young. We want a candidate who is not dogmatic about religion or tribe. We want a unifier. We want a bridge builder. We want an experienced person as the next President of Nigeria. We want a compassionate, courageous, and cool-headed President.

” These are boxes we have created for the next President of Nigeria to tick. After an intensive search, we have found a man who tick almost all the boxes. He is, fortunately, one of the leaders of your party, the PDP. He is Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, CON, a former President of the Nigerian Senate, former Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum, former Governor of Kwara State, former Special Assistant to the President of Nigeria on Budget Matters, former Executive Vice Chairman of Societe Generale Bank of Nigeria, former members of the Vision 2020 Committee and a consummate friend of the Nigerian youths.

” You will see that because we are not money bags and extremely wealthy business people, we have many Bankers Cheques (or what is commonly known as Bank Drafts) put together to make the N36 million that is the cost of purchasing the Expression of Interest and Nomination forms. This is because we told each person to purchase the Cheques based on his or her financial capacity. Thus, we have different people contributing between N500,000 to N2million. This is therefore a collective effort, a contribution of many, and a joint endorsement of youths for Dr. Saraki.

” We believe Dr. Saraki will lead Nigeria out of the current multi-dimensional crises. He will make the country great. We call on the leadership of the PDP to also recognise the attributes that we have seen in him. We pray that Nigerian voters will join us in electing this man as President. We are confident he will make a positive difference in our country. “