LAGOS — SENIOR Special Assistant on Public Affairs to President Goodluck Jonathan, Dr. Doyin Okupe, has described the election of a former Head of State, Gen. Mohammadu Buhari (retd), as presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, as a fatal error.
Okupe who dismissed Buhari’s electoral potentials during a courtesy visit to Vanguard’s corporate headquarters in Lagos, also dismissed criticisms against the administration’s capacity to uphold the nation’s territorial integrity.
He also urged the press to stop counting the number of days the militant Islamist Boko Haram group has held on to the more than 200 secondary school girls from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State.
Okupe in the same vein blasted Buhari for not making much money in his life, saying that repeated reference to the former head of state as a poor man was not a morale-boosting virtue for younger Nigerians. He said a man who failed to make much out of life should not be enthroned with the nation’s collective destiny.
Buhari’s choice a fatal error
His words: ‘’The choice of APC or their decision to elect Buhari as their standard bearer, is a fatal error. I have been in this game for nearly 30 years or more. I understand this game of politics very well. Buhari is not a winner, has never won, and will not win; and it is for a reason that he has never won.
“The question you need to ask yourself and what APC should have asked themselves is: Why Buhari? The calculation is that Buhari came with 12 million votes on the strength of his showing in the last election. Now, if you can deliver the entire South-West, that is another 20 million votes, and other platforms, you add it and he is going to win.
“Politic is not mathematics. Yes, Buhari had 12 million votes. The Bola Tinubus of this world, in the course of showing their capabilities, have been bruised; they do not control the South-West and that is very clear. In actual fact, because they have a lot of money, Buhari should have dumped them long ago because they cannot deliver.
“At the beginning of this year, maybe the calculation was still clear that they would deliver South-West. Today in the South-West, Ondo is not in the basket, Ekiti is not in the basket, Osun State is neither here nor there and I am saying that authoritatively.
“Omisore may still be the governor of Osun but even if he does not become the governor of Osun State, we have seen the results of election in Osun State. If that is something to go by, it is topsy-turvy.’
“In Lagos State, just as they (APC) are clamouring for change at the national level, people at the grassroots are saying they are fed up of the nonsensical things that APC has been doing in the state.
“So, the point I am trying to make is that theoretical calculations may be what has misled them into taking that decision, but it is unfortunate and regrettable, and it is a fatal error.
Buhari is a non-issue
“Buhari, to me, is a non-issue. Buhari has only two things going for him. He has not improved himself since he left office; he has not added any value, personally to himself or to any political tendencies that he represents. He is a religious bigot and there is nothing he can do about that. He is not even a nationalist. Some few days ago, some people came out to say that Buhari is the northern candidate. So, who is the southern candidate?
“Buhari is trying to make poverty a virtue, but poverty is not a virtue. The fact that Buhari has left office for so long and he says he is so poor, is nothing to celebrate, it is indolence and shameful. Is that a role model? Is that who you will want your children to be, a poor man? Indolence is not something we should celebrate. If a man like Buhari at his age says he is a poor person, that is too bad and it is also a deceit. That is not integrity.”
On Chibok girls
On the Chibok girls, Okupe said: “That is a very touchy issue, it is a very lamentable situation and an issue of profound national tragedy. It is not an issue of finding or when are we finding the girls. The media has got on the wrong side of it.
“The real issue is that we are in a war situation and at the beginning, I am not sure that everybody accepted that situation. Some people are waging a very serious war against Nigeria, nothing is worse than war. When you are in a war situation, anything happens. Murder, cold blooded murder, wanton destruction of property, kidnapping, raping, you can name it. Even the best armies in the world commit such terrible atrocities. It is recorded in history.
“So, a war situation is a bad situation, that is why I said that it is not about finding the girls alone. When you are in a war situation, all the things I have said can happen. The misfortune we have is that we had these girls taken away violently and it is extremely painful.
We must stop counting
“When you have over 200 hostages, it is bad business. The hostages are not kept in one place, which makes it more profound. So, do not let us go into the sentimentality of when government will bring the girls back. We are in a war situation, it is a very dicey circumstance but when you are talking of safety of lives, you cannot put tenure to what you must endure, to save a life and that is why we must stop counting.
“It is unnecessary, it does not help us, it does not help the girls. If it helps anybody, it encourages the insurgents and I don’t think that is the intention of anybody anywhere.
“If all these months and days, Boko Haram has not killed the girls and there is no information that the girls have been killed, it means there is a reason they are holding them and they have not killed them.
“We are not going to encourage them or create a situation where the girls are going to be killed. That was why the government took a lot of effort and took the bait when Chad offered an olive branch, unfortunately, nothing came out of it.
“That shows you that government is caring, this government, even at the risk of its reputation, is willing to go and do anything possible to release the girls but we are in a war situation.” (Vanguard)
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