AFRICAN TIMES MAGAZINE
Despite the emergence of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, as favoured presidential candidates for the 2023 general election, the clamour for Igbo President with Mr. Peter Obi as the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, is gathering momentum, according to Dr. Doyin Okupe, the Diretor-General of the Peter Obi Presidential Campaign Organisation. Okupe recently jettisoned his presidential aspiration to support Obi. In an interview with journalists, the former Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to President Olusegun Obasanjo, and ex-Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs to President Goodluck Jonathan, speaks on how Obi will emerge winner of the 2023 presidential election and plans to build the biggest coalition ever in Nigeria before the election. His words;
“I withdrew from the presidential contest because it would be unfair to compete with the South East who for all intent and purposes, should produce the next president of the country if we say that this is the turn of the south. Now, having taken that decision, I took a cursory look at the aspirants from the South East and to the best of my knowledge and my conviction, I saw that Peter Obi was the best of the very best. So I pitched my tent with him.
“Obi leaving the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for the Labour Party, LP, was an inevitable decision. You know, Peter Obi said something: “I will rather lose doing the right thing than to win doing the wrong thing”. So the way the primaries were being conducted, if he had stayed, he would have to compromise on his principles and ideals.
“I’m very sure we are going to win. It’s going to be a shock to Nigerians. I don’t see the PDP and the APC making headway.
“Obi’s emergence has been described as a movement or revolution due to his massive followers and supporters on social media.
“Yes, he has a massive following on social media, but his following and the political revolution that he’s leading presently is far beyond social media. It’s broken the bounds of what the new media is all about.
“Peter Obi today is the very essence of Nigerian politics. If you go to the market, church, mosque, or enter a taxi or a bus, everybody, farmers, religious leaders, is talking about Peter Obi. I just saw a tape where the young man is saying I’m going to follow the man who says he will move Nigeria from consumption to production and this boy will be about 14 years old. So if the message has got to that level, then you will know that this is beyond social media. Nigerians are now aware of what politics is going on. The dynamism of the youthful population and their strength and capacity in terms of electoral advantage is going to shock the country.
“I’m telling you that between now and January next year, the Peter Obi movement will put together between 25 – 30 million people and I don’t see any existing political party that can top that. Nigerians both young and old, are tired of our political platforms that have been exchanging powers between the PDP and the APC and you know, the line between the two has actually disappeared. PDP today has picked Atiku as its flag bearer. Atiku had contested for presidency on the platform of the APC. Also, the chairman and secretary of APC were members of the PDP. So, sincerely speaking, we have gone full circle about these parties and the truth of the matter is that in terms of political relevance, the APC and the PDP have expired. And you know that nature abhors a vacuum, so the third force of young people will now have to take over to rescue the country.”