– Former presidential spokesman, Chief Doyin Okupe, has taken a swipe at Asiwaju Bola Tinubu
– Okupe is confident that Tinubu will be sent to political retirement by the PDP in 2019
– He said the popularity and national acceptability of the APC are receding
Former presidential spokesman, Chief Doyin Okupe, has taken a swipe at the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, over his recent comments on the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
Tinubu in a recent comment, had said he was not bothered about Atiku’s recent strategy meeting in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates.
“Whether it is in the jungle, or it is in Dubai or it is in Abu Dhabi, people are free to meet and strategise in anyway they want but we are not going back to the illusion of the PDP,”the former Lagos state governor told State House correspondents after he met with President Muhammadu Buhari.
Reacting, Okupe said the comments made Tinubu, “are essentially not meant for the serious minded, and quite unexpected from the leader of a party in power whose popularity and national acceptability are receding faster than the waters of lake Chad.”
He continued: “Asiwaju’s statement is extremely presumptuous. It assumes that he as a person or whatever political platform he stands on will have anything to do with who emerges as president in 2019.
“I assure Asiwaju that he does not, and will not have any serious influence on who will emerge as president after the 2019 elections. He had such opportunity in 2015 but it was wasted on a moribund, unproductive and lack lustre presidency.
“Hence, it is a fact that Asiwaju had a tremendous influence and did play a significant role in the emergence of president Muhammadu Buhari in 2015.
“This was due to the fact that he and the APC were able to successfully hoodwink the Nigerian electorates into wrongly believing that the incumbent at that time was weak, inept and clueless.
“The prevailing feeling in Nigeria then was that a change was necessary to “save” the country.
“However, things are quite different now. Without prompting, propaganda or mass-brainwashing, Nigerians have come to realise that a victory for Buhari in 2019 is an existential threat not only to the peaceful coexistence of the nation, but also to individual well-being and survival of families, breadwinners and jobs across the country.
“Based on this undeniable fact, Tinubu, APC and their candidate, Muhammadu Buhari have lost the elections even before the set date.”
Okupe asked Tinubu not to worry about where Atiku is holding meetings to unseat Buhari, but he advised him to “seriously give urgent thoughts to his own destination after 2019.”
“I want to assure him that the PDP will retire him gracefully to his political shrine at Bourdillon. While the expired and rejected product he is dutifully carrying to the political market in 2019 heads to Daura; hale and hearty,” he concluded.
Meanwhile, the presidential candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Obiageli ‘Oby’ Ezekwesili, has called on Nigerians to reject the presidential candidates of the ruling APC and main opposition PDP in the upcoming 2019 presidential elections.
Ezekwesili, a former minister of education, said the cycle of leadership failure in Nigeria is unsustainable and it has to end.
According to her, the country deserves better than the quality of leadership it currently gets.
