I know many people have tried to make this election to be like a referendum on me. Some of these speak of a temperament that I brought into this electoral process. Whatever temperament you are able to point, is not mine alone, it is that of many of our country men and women whose voices have been silenced and who feel that the system is rigged against them for so long. I saw it quite close when, with the resources God blessed me with; I was able to penetrate into the world of politicians in order to secure the things I needed to prosper my business. It worked for me because I had the resources to pay those who are able to read the fine-prints to take advantages of the loopholes crafted into the policies of government both for my internal and external investments. And heaven knows that it did not work for the 99% of you.

My incursion into partisan politics is not because I am tired of making profits. It is not because I want to expand my business empire. It’s out of some guilt and pain: “How can I joyfully continue on this path why many of my country men and women are suffering due to bad polices, deals, and judgments of the career political class?” How can I continue to stand aloof as they continue to lie, cheat, and manipulate the trust we have placed in them?” How can I continue to be silent when they go around on our tax dollar blaming everyone else for every drawback in our society whereas their own fortunes and bank accounts continue to swell?” I reflected deeply on these, consulted widely in search of someone who could lead this fight so that our democracy can continue to be one of, for, and by the people. Throughout the period of the search the words continued to bang into me, “Why can’t you”? Therefore, when I stepped into the race I did so aware that I have a message that I did not want to see drowned. It was for this that I was the last to sign the GOP pledge, demanding for all contestants to support the eventual nominee. And thank God it was done before the first votes were cast so that people don’t think it was because I was winning. I signed when I was assured that there will be a level playing field for all. At this I wish to formerly thank Chairman Reince Priebus and his team for standing by and respecting the will of the people. And were they pressured? I bet you they were.

I lined up with many talented and well-funded career politicians making our cases and at the end majority of the GOP voters preferred the message of our campaign to those of the others. Whether it was because I was more rugged, more erudite, or displayed a temperament that spoke to those of the people only God knows. One thing was certain on my part, I articulated things I observed that were pulling us down as a nation. And because those items were adopted by other contestants I would have felt fulfilled to have placed a voice on the platform should another one have won the primaries.

To be honest, I am humbled by the choice of me to fly the GOP flag because I know how imperfect I am. Aware of the highs and lows in this journey you will all confirm that winning the primaries was not redemptive enough to wipe away all my imperfections. I realized that you chose me not because I am perfect but because I articulated a message which resonated with many of you. I know that if I win the presidency you will not just want me to be a smooth talker but and honest doer. Therefore, I ask that you pray that God will melt me, mold me, fill me, and use me for his greater glory and the good of our country called “God’s own country.”

Whether this prayer is answered today or in the months ahead, only god knows. However, I share with you what worries me about this election. Many have tried to make it about me or about Ms. Clinton. Actually I think it is about none of us. This election, more than anything is about whether we are a democracy or an aristocracy. It is about the type of future we want to leave for our children and grandchildren; a country where bare-faced dishonesty and corruption are rewarded or one where patriotism and national interest are rewarded. This election is about how we can, in good conscience, lead the many nations of the world who look up to us to be that shining city on the hill where the rule of law is supreme and not just the law for the ruled. As I have continued to say, the greatest achievement of Ms. Clinton, is her ability to escape prosecution by the FBI for the disingenuous use of and disposal of a personal server for the business of state and how the justice department chose to look another way regardless of the incriminating evidence of the pay to play that existed between her family foundation and the State department supported by our tax dollars.

You may be aware of the inability of law enforcements to excuse a parent or anyone who leaves a child or a pet in the car to quickly pick up something from the store. Yet someone who deliberately came into an office with her own Server, placed in her own house, did all State business on that Server, never gave the Server to the State department when she was leaving, and wiped contents of her choice when being investigated was said to do so without deliberate intention to hurt national interest. Then what is “is” in the definition of intention because the action was quite planned and perfectly executed. People are imprisoned for tampering with evidence of cases under investigation, yet her wiping irretrievably clean, the contents in the secretly stored Server was dismissed by a wave of the hand. Furthermore, it is unheard of how a highly charged investigation as that can be done without a sworn affidavit, yet FBI allowed her to give an unsworn testimony in which case she could tell them the truth different from everything she was telling the American people so that she will be exonerated in the end as not lying to FBI. It all means that “We the people” don’t count but the people who are paid with our tax dollars count.

Be that as it may, everyone who listened to the submission of the FBI director knew from all the premises he enunciated that the logical conclusion cannot be that, for lack of precedence in law nothing will be done. Does the conclusion mean that all the evidence that he enumerated in the buildup of his investigation came to nothing? It was a sad day for criminal justice in this country. Nobody says that the political class should not protect each other; after all they are a union of interests regardless of the cover of party differences. Even if they were not willing to prosecute one of their own, decency and good conscience would have prevailed on them as not to go ahead to promote her. In spite of this the president shamelessly took her in the Airforce 1 immediately to campaign for and with her (Something that shows that the President knew where the case will be decided—something perfected by making the director uninvolved in the interviewing and his not asking the position of all those who did the interviewing). That singular event raises the question, if these career politicians have conscience. One may also wonder what accord was struck by these people because there was no way the president or his aides were unaware of Ms. Clinton’s use of Private Server in the discharge of the business of State for four good years. If they really don’t know, it will be dereliction of duty at the highest level; and if they knew, it will be good to know what they did to stop it or why they chose to ignore it. In either case, it showed that they were not truly serving the American people but themselves, otherwise the presidency should have been the most angered of these revelations. But the acquiescence shows that corruption is a canonized culture of the administration and so it will be difficult to expect something different from someone who has benefited from that culture and wants to continue the administration. From this culture what do we tell our children about attitude to public service?

If you allow Hillary to win either by voting for her or by not going to vote because you don’t like some of the ways I speak, how will you comfortably sleep knowing that confidentiality in government is lost? How could a Clinton government in conscience prosecute anyone who does the same thing while saying that it was unintentional? And when this reckless behavior becomes norm don’t you think that we have unleashed a monster that will bury our government for a long time to come?

Again this election will judge if our preference is democracy or aristocracy. Mind you I have nothing against a Clinton or a Bush coming back to the White House in the midst of over 300 million citizens. But it should be according to the rule of democracy and not that of a selection by insiders.  I know I was hard on Jeb in the GOP primaries but nobody can take away that he is a good man with rich experience. Yet the context was decided by the voters and not fixed by an aristocratic class who want nothing but that their will be done. And with such openness despite the ruggedness of the context I would have voted for anyone who had emerged in a heartbeat because it was free and fair and that I strongly believe that Republican principles when truly applied are better than those of the Democrats.

Nobody can say the same thing about the process in the primaries of the Democrats. Theirs was sealed and delivered for and to Hillary. Many good people were not given the chance and the socialist Bernie was only allowed to make it look like a context. But when his message began to resonate against the aristocrats, every machine was railed against him as were revealed in the DNC hackings. And it was all so that the most decorated corrupt political family in the USA may take back the reins of power in order to become dead broke again as they claimed after the first Clinton left the white house. You really would have expected that a family who saw their fortunes as broke will want to get back to the office where they came out broke. May be they have perfected how to make more fortunes now—at least the business of the Clinton Foundation tells it all. And when you think that the revelations from the Server scandal and Foundation scandal will drown them their corrupt allies build a bridge for them to walk over. And if you think this is not a statement of the political culture you will wonder the vociferous insider fights against me in favor of my opponent when my policies are over 90% more in agreement with celebrated GOP platform than anything. Is there a better way of explaining it than to say that, “it is politicians covering the backs of each other.”

My dear compatriots, with all humility I reach out to you to make this case that this election is an opportunity for us to tell the world if we love our democracy or if we now want to embrace aristocracy. America is not an extension of Clinton Inc. America is a democracy and not an aristocracy. And do you know the beauty of the November election? It is one man one vote, one woman one vote. Members of the liberal press are less than five thousand and the career politicians are less than 100 thousand strong; but there are multi-million of us, all having one vote also in our millions. These career politicians and their press co-travelers can speak as they like and vote as they like, but if we stand our ground with our conviction that it is time for change, that we choose democracy and not aristocracy, that the USA is bigger than one person or one family, we will surly prevail. And I am trusting you to help take this message everywhere and to get out to vote so that our pride as a democratic nation where no one is above the law will be sustained for our children and grandchildren.

Take another reason to commit and vote with our movement for change. Every political treatise of the governments and people that are considered Third World are said to be riddled by corruption. You must have heard about the same things happening right here at home. You recall the Operation Fast and Furious, you recall the IRS scandals to suppress conservative voices, and you may recall the unequal exchange in the release of five “Terrorist Generals” for Sgt. Bergdal. Please don’t think I am not happy that one of us came back, but you can be sure that it was not done sincerely otherwise how is it that we do not have a final verdict of the court martial. You recall the $400million given to Iran in the dark of the night in an unmarked airplane. You recall the corruption laden in the formulation of Obamacare when the experts saw us as stupid folks who will never know what is happening. The same can be said about the deception in the Iran deal wrapped in lies that ridiculed the mind of our young press corps. They think that we have forgotten the corruption in the Omnibus Bill that included the Solyndra Energy and how we cannot point to the summer of recovery that would have come from the Bill; such that we were told that the jobs were not shovel ready as told. Yet no one can answer to where the money went.

For these and more to end we need a change; and I am offering myself as the candidate of change because with Hillary it’s only going to be the extension of the Obama years. It’s there already for all to see how they are all wedded in the corruption ring as Obama has shown no disdain for the revelation of pay to play in his State department under her including the staggering money Bill Clinton received in speeches to people that her office paved ways for some support; in the careless handling of classified information in his government under her and when the lid is to be blown open she wiped them clean and He still felt there is no smidgen of corruption. And as one who is bought and paid for she was able to gain campaign cash in the name of speeches to the Money markets. One wonders what she told them that they didn’t know except that they were securing places in the eventual Hilary government. It is called investments.  With all these, what will she say about corruption in Afghanistan, Nigeria (where they have the mysterious land deal already and have romance with Mr. Chadgury), Iran, etc. If she wins don’t you care that our children will begin to think that the best way to get ahead is to lie, cheat, and obfuscate, and intimidate so long as you have the magic name that will assure your defense. Should this happen I know many of us will weep for the end of America as we know it. So please I plead with you to rise up because there is something for us to defend bigger than any one of us. If you do and we win, I solemnly pledge that I will not disappoint you. And if for any reason you think that I am putting myself and interests above that of our commonwealth push for my impeachment and if that does not work, I will be glad to be primaried in the next four years. I came to where I am today not because I know better, but because you trusted my message. Ours is a movement to make a peaceful change possible so that politicians of the future will no longer go to serve themselves but us. Thanks and may the Spirit of God remind you of all the reasons for which we need to win back our democracy. God bless you and God bless our motherland, the USA.

Uju Okeahialam, PhD.

(My Campaign ideas for the Trump Camp August 21, 2016)