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The D.G. Of His Campaign, Dr. DOYIN OKUPE Opens Up
Are you one of those still wondering why Peter Obi, the Labour Party Presidential Candidate at last year’s General Elections lost out to Pres. Bola Tinubu?
Are you one of those wondering why a seasoned politician, Dr. Doyin Okupe left the PDP where he has been a valued member for years to join the Labour Party to work with Peter Obi?
A few days back, Dr. Doyin Okupe, a popular politician who was the Director General of Obi’s Campaign Organisation told City People why Peter Obi came a distant 3rd to Tinubu and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar came 2nd. What happened we asked him? “Let me tell you. Let me first tell you why I left the PDP at the time I did. Many don’t know the story of how I joined Labour Party and why I decided to work with Peter Obi. I laugh when these young people say I have taken corn, I should go and eat and enjoy my money. Many don’t know the man Doyin Okupe. I have never taken bribe from anybody. I have never had a political godfather in my life. I have never taken a political decision, based on Money. Never! Many times I have taken decisions that are not randomly acceptable to people, or my environment or my friends. I only follow my own mind and what God dictates for me. That is who I am. I have a solid reputation. I am so grateful to God. I believe I am an accomplished person. I feel so myself. I have been spokesperson for 2 Presidents in this country. Adults who are 40 years and above if you ask them, at least 40% of them will know who Doyin Okupe is. Who the hell am I? God has been overtly too kind to me personally.”
“How did I join Labour Party? Why did I join Labour Party? I was not a member of Labour Party before then. I went to Labour Party. I initially wanted to run for President. I declared that I wanted to be President. I did declare because I believed that the PDP was going towards the adoption of a Northerner, particularly Atiku, as their candidate. That was a No, No, for me. I have been in this game for years. I started Politics in 1978. I don’t have any senior that is still practising today. In terms of those practising politics today, in the field of politics today, I don’t have any Senior. If anybody says he is my Senior, let him tell us. I joined Politics in 1978, as a Vice Chairman of a Ward in Epetedo, Lagos of NPN.”
“That is the truth. And by the grace of God, I am still active. I am not saying, I am the oldest politician alive, No! I am saying I am the oldest politician that is still in practice, still in the art of practice of Politics in Nigeria. I am 72 as I speak to you. I may have contemporaries, but I don’t have Seniors.”
“So, let me take you back to when Baba Adebanjo called me. He said he has read that I want to be President. He said, Onijogbon, you are a trouble maker. I said Baba, I am not making trouble. You don’t know what is going on in our own party. You are not a PDP person. I am a member of the PDP. I told him, PDP wants to pick an Hausa person to come to power after Buhari, who is also from the North. That doesn’t make sense to me. It makes a mockery of our Federalism, it makes a mockery of our Unity as a nation.
For me, it directly seeks to undermine my essence as a human being. I am not inferior to any Nigerian, either by birth or education. If it is by birth I am a Prince. If it is by education, I was educated in the best school in Nigeria. I belong to one of the best professions, Medicine. I qualified as a Medical Practitioner. I have always lived well. I have more than an average intellect. So, I don’t see myself lower than any Nigeria. So, why should I now become a 2nd class citizen that is not worthy of any consideration, in the same country in which I am in?
So, I revolted very strongly against that.”
“It is personal.”
“So, Baba then said, Doyin, lets face it. If this power were to rotate to the South, which section of the South should it go?
“So, I said Baba, let us be factual, South-West has been President. (Obasanjo). South-South has been President (Jonathan) in recent times. Only South-East has not had a shot at it. And I find this to be an injustice. But there is nothing a single person can do. So, if they can fight for themselves, we can support them, so be it. So, Baba said why don’t we just support them, I said I agree.
That is what happened. It was Baba Adebanjo that called me. Thank God, he is still alive. He called me into his bedroom. That is where we had this discussion. So I agreed and I left him.
At tthat time I was staying in Iperu-Remo and I called my political associates and I told them about the encounter and what I decided, and that I was going to drop out of the race. So they said who are we going to support. So, I said if we are going to support the East, there is Pius Ayim, there is Peter Obi, there are 2 other people. And I think Peter Obi has the greatest appeal. The next day, I went to that Press Centre in Abeokuta called Iwe Irohin. It is on record. I went there to declare that I was dropping from the race and that I was going to support Peter Obi.”
“As at that time, I had never met Peter Obi. I had never discussed with him. I had not not seen him. I didn’t know anything about him, I only knew that he wanted to be President.”
“It was only 5 days later that Peter Obi called me and said I heard everything you said ooo. He said he was in Egypt or Morocco at that time. He said when can we see? I told him I had declared support for him. I asked him: Are you in Lagos? He said Yes. So, I said lets meet in Southern Sun Hotel in Ikoyi for Lunch. For about 2 hours we had lunch. He now said please can you be the DG of my campaign. I said gladly I will be. I will do it. That’s how the journey with Obi started.”
“And when it was crystal clear to us that we cannot get the ticket under PDP, the gladiators were too many, the odds against us were unsumoutable, quite clearly, so Obi and I sat down in a hotel in Abuja and concluded that if we stayed on in the party and take part in the primaries and after that, we leave to go and contest in another party it won’t look good to the public. So let’s leave before their primaries. So, we left. We left PDP. His letter of resignation was written and for 3 days it was on his table in the hotel room. So, I woke up one morning and I said Peter, this letter is still here. I am going to go and deliver it today. So, I took the letter, without his exprss permission, but he was there. I took the letter to the National Secretariat of the PDP. The National Chairman was not there. But I dropped the letter and I signed. They also signed the acceptance copy for me. That was how we left. We now started to look for which party will accomodate us.”
“The conditions they gave were not too favourable. And many were not directly forth coming. In all honesty, the party that gave us the most favourable conditionality and support and was not looking for anything was the Labour Party. I commend Abure and his gang, made up of Ojukwu, the National Organising Secretary.”
“They did not demand money from us. They gave us accomodation. They said if you want anything like changes in their exco we should say. We should discuss with them. We just said hold on to your exco, we would work with you.”
“So, we went to Asaba, and had the Convention and Obi was nominated. That was how we started the journey. The journey between Peter Obi & I was based on our repulsion for a Northern candidate to succeed Buhari.
“We wanted a Southern candidate in our party and our party was not ready to pick a Southern candidate so we left. The basis of our political association between Obi & I was that we would fight for a Southern candidate, in this case it was him. So, we went for the election and we lost.”
“They said APC rigged. But the truth was that we lost. If you say APC rigged, which party did not rig? Which election has not been rigged since 1999? I am a politician.
“I am a practitioner of Politics. I know the terrain. I have taken part in all elections since 1998.”
“And I have told many people that my Destiny and What I do politically, cannot depend on Obi’s ambition. That is the truth. After the elections and we lost, I told them, I am done. Look, we wanted to achieve something, we didn’t achieve it, another Southerner won, which was our original aim. So, indirectly God has answered our own prayers. And to make matters worse for me, the man who won, is from the South-West, and he is a very good friend of mine. It is politics that separated us”.
“I cannot but wish him well. I didn’t vote for him, bad enough. I didn’t support him bad enough. But now that God has put him there, why should I go against him? I cannot be. And that is not a betrayal. If you say I betrayed Peter Obi, how about Peter Obi? He was Atiku Abubakar’s Vice Presidential candidate. Atiku Abubakar brought Peter Obi to national limelight. Obi because of his own ambition, which was correct and due, left the party and contested against him. So, if you say I betrayed Peter, what did Peter do to Atiku? Its not fair.
“You know, in Politics there are no permanent enemies, only permanent interests. It is Obi’s interest in the 2023 elections that made him go on collision cause against his former Master. In my own case, Obi was never my Master. I was his Supporter. So if I support him up to a point and the thing didn’t work and I went back to be myself, how can that be an offence?”
“The people in my former party, Labour Party said they cheated us, that they won the elections. How could Peter Obi have won the presidential elections, without winning in the 2 most electorally-populous zones, between the North-West, where we had almost zero presence and South-West where we had marginal presence. 50% of the total votes are residential in this 2 areas.
“So, if you don’t win in the North-West and South-West forget it. If you win everywhere else you will lose the elections. So, those considerations are there”.
“As far as I am concerned, to say because the 2023 presidential elections was flawed, then nobody won, is not true. I was the Director General of the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Organisation. We ran a most fantastic campaign”.
“You know this yourself. We did a lot of mobilisation. But we had our flaws”.
“We had shortcomings. The party was grossly and inadequately arranged to cover a national election.We didn’t have what it takes and the structure that can cover the country was not there. We didn’t have it. We didn’t have polling agents in more than 80% of the polling booths across the country. So how can you win the elections. How? Even if you win and you are not there they will change it. As long as the agents and presiding agents are not Angels, they will change it. And I have said this before”.
“In any country where illetracy is preponderant and Poverty is rife you can’t have Democracy”.
“You can’t have true Democracy. In Poverty, people will take money and sell their lives and their souls because they want to eat. We must fight Poverty from our system and improve the level of education and let more and more people be educated, so that people can understand what the stakes are”.
“Let the truth be told, our systems have been terribly corrupted and compromised against elections that are not flawless. That is the truth. We have a Law. We have a Constitution. If the Supreme Court pronounces Bola Tinubu as the President of Nigeria as it did, so it is, unless you want anarchy. So, in this case, the Supreme Court has judged and as pronounced that Bola Tinubu won the election, so as far as I am concerned, that is it for me”.
“As far as I am concerned, the day Supreme Court pronounced Bola Tinubu as winner, for me that is the end of the race. He has won. We don’t have to kill him, or destroy him or bring his government down, because we feel he has cheated us. For Labour, nobody cheated us. I am telling you. People may not agree, that is the truth. I am telling you for a fact. And I know. And I should know”.
“As far as I am concerned, Bola Tinubu is the President of Nigeria. When people say I betrayed Peter Obi, I always ask them, how? How did I betray Obi? There is nothing to betray. Number one, I came into Politics in 1978, Obi was not anywhere close to politics. He was just compeleting what he was doing. So my life and political destiny cannot be tied to the ambition of Peter Obi”.
“It is not possible now. Think about it”.
“I can help him. I can support him, that doesn’t mean I can’t have a right to my own life and decisions!”
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