Dele Momodu, journalist and publisher of Ovation Magazine, has joined the 2023 presidential race, promising to fix the country. 

Momodu declared his interest on Thursday when he met with Ayorchia Ayu, chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), at the party headquarters in Abuja.

The former presidential candidate of the National Conscience Party (NCP) in the 2011 election said he is now better prepared to run, adding that he “won’t be intimidated by anyone who feels he or she can buy the whole of Nigeria with loads of cash fraudulently”.

“After due consultations with my family, friends and some stakeholders, I have arrived at the decision to contest the 2023 presidential election on the platform of our great party, PDP, if selected as the party’s candidate,” he said.

“I hasten to add that this is my personal decision, although I have received advice, encouragement and support from diverse quarters since I started my consultations.

“I, therefore, offer myself to the PDP as the best aspirant to turn the fortunes of our esteemed party and our well-endowed country around. In this regard, and with a deep sense of humility and profound respect.

“I urge the party not to consider picking its candidate based on the usual considerations which had spectacularly failed our country in the past. The mood of the teeming youths, and indeed every patriotic Nigerian, who we need to come out en masse to vote for our party, aligns with this view.

“It is for this reason, that I invite our great party, PDP, to accept that it must search for a veritable flag bearer with the requisite leadership and visionary qualities that Nigerians now earnestly yearn for.

“I’m convinced that the time has come to seriously challenge and dislodge those politicians who have held our country to ransom by kidnapping, hijacking and destroying the future of our younger generation and generations yet unborn.

“I’m better prepared now than at the time of my first foray into the fray in 2011, and I am fully ready and certainly capable for the onerous tasks and responsibilities ahead.

“I wish to place on record my firm promise and commitment not to be harassed, bullied or intimidated by anyone who feels he or she can buy the whole of Nigeria with loads of cash fraudulently and illegally filched and taken from the Nigerian people.”

Momodu added that Nigeria “urgently requires a reset and a total redirection”.