A former Director-General of the Labour Party (LP) Presidential Campaign, Doyin Okupe, has dismissed the opposition’s claims of a stolen mandate in the 2023 election.
Okupe argued that while there may have been instances of rigging, no presidential mandate was stolen from the opposition. He questioned how Peter Obi, the LP’s presidential candidate, was able to win in Tinubu’s home base if the election was indeed rigged.
In a statement released in Lagos, Okupe expressed his thoughts on the matter.
He pointed out that if the election was rigged, it’s unclear why Obi was able to secure a victory in Tinubu’s stronghold. Similarly, he wondered why the APC lost the election in the home base of President Muhammadu Buhari and the Secretary to the Government.
Okupe emphasized that the accusations of rigging don’t hold water, stating, “If Peter Obi or the Labour Party claims the APC rigged the elections, how did Obi manage to win in Tinubu’s home base? How did the APC lose in the home base of the sitting president and the Secretary to the Government?”
He added that the results may not have been perfect, but they would have had a similar ratio under the best of conditions. Okupe acknowledged that the Labour Party couldn’t have done better than they did, citing reasons that he didn’t elaborate on.
Okupe believes that the opposition parties, PDP and LP, are being unrealistic with their claims that the presidency was stolen. He emphasized that there was no stolen presidency, although he acknowledged that rigging has been a part of Nigerian elections since 1960.
Okupe expressed admiration for Tinubu’s reforms, stating that the president’s policies will start to yield results from the second year of his administration. He praised Tinubu as a technocrat with deep thinking abilities and development ideologies at his fingertips.
Okupe compared Tinubu to the late Premier of the defunct Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who was known for his great ideas about public policies. He described Tinubu as a reformer and dismissed claims that he came to office without a plan, calling it “total nonsense.”
