Barely hours after incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan and Gen. Muhammadu Buhari emerged as presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the All Progressives Congress, APC, respectively, the United Progressive Party (UPP) has elected Chief Chekwas Okorie as its presidential candidate in the upcoming 2015 presidential elections.
According to reports, Okorie, who was the sole aspirant on the party’s platform, polled 64 votes out of the 72 votes cast by the accredited delegates at the UPP’s national convention/presidential primary held in Aba, the commercial city of Abia State on Thursday.
While announcing the result of the primaries, the Chairman of the national convention planning/ primary election committee, Chief Ogbuehi Dike, , declared that Okorie had satisfied every condition necessary for him to fly the flag of the party in next year’s polls.
A statement by the media coordinator of the UPP, Orji Okorie, on Thursday, said the party’s flags were also presented to its gubernatorial candidates.
Those who received the flags are Osmond Ukanacho (Imo), Chris Akomas (Abia), Binta Gwarzo (Kano).
The statement also said the positions of all the national working committee, NWC, members of the party were also ratified at the Convention.
Meanwhile, the UPP presidential candidate immediately presented Alhaji Bello Umar as his running mate.
Umar, who is also the Deputy National Vice-Chairman of UPP, is from Zamfara State where for many years he was the chairman of the Nigeria Bar Association ( NBA).
Making his acceptance speech, Okorie sounded a note or warning to the ruling PDP and the main opposition APC that their days were numbered as the dominant parties, saying that UPP has come sweep them away.
From today, the political equation of Nigeria has changed,” Okorie declared, adding that “the battle is between the progressive forces represented UPP and the reactionary forces represented by PDP and APC.”
He said UPP had come to offer Nigerians clean and credible option in the forthcoming presidential election as both PDP “are full of recycled criminals, former jail birds and corrupt and deceitful politicians.
“If you vote for PDP or APC it means you hate yourself and your children. It is only the tiger that represents change,” he said.
The UPP presidential candidate said that Nigerians are facing “serious problems” and the journey to rescue them is the journey of the tiger, which cannot be done in a tattered umbrella or with a mere broom.
It would be recalled that UPP was registered in October 2012.
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