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The next govt must heal the nation, reunite the people –Okupe

Dr Doyin Okupe is a former Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs to President Goodluck Jonathan and a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In this interview monitored by ANAYO EZEUGWU, he speaks on the crisis in his party and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as well as the 2023 presidential election, among other issues

What is your position on the leadership crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as well as the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC)?

What we are seeing is systemic failure based on fundamental wrongs. The parties did not evolve properly. From the beginning, somewhere along the line, the parties were politically decapitated and new leadership was planted. What we are seeing really is not how a political party should be. In terms of structure, the leadership of the parties since 1999 has changed from leadership base authority to official leaders. If you are a governor, it doesn’t matter when and how you joined the party, you will automatically become the leader of the party at the state level. I know some governors who came back from abroad six months to the election to become governors and automatically they became heads of the party in their states. That is an abnormality and because we have now changed the kind of leadership that runs the party, it is easy for one or two people to decide on who becomes the chairman of the party and he is forced on everybody and everybody accepts him. So, what you are seeing really is because the parties are not very well-grounded. They are not being run by properly elected people. I remember when Tomi Ikimi was going to be the national chairman of the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC), we went to every local government, every state and it was a popular election and everybody had a stake in his chairmanship. That is what it ought to be but in this case, what do we have, everybody goes to Abuja and a few people go into a room and then write the names of people, come to the convention and there is an endorsement. You don’t even have a feel of the chairman; you don’t see him and don’t know anything about him. So, if they remove him or impose him on the party, it doesn’t matter to the people.

In terms of specific details, what is your take on the crisis in the PDP and APC?

Superimpose on all of this is the race for 2023, you must understand that clearly. In the PDP, seven deputy officials resigned, four National Working Committee (NWC) members resigned, all these are just symptoms of big illness behind. The issue is that some people want to remove the executive of the party because staying there is not going to be in their best interest in the race towards 2023. There are other people who are insisting that these people should stay, because for them, they will have a political advantage. So, it is a balancing of interest. As far as APC is concerned, it is the same thing because people are struggling for the soul of the party, because in our system, whoever controls the party, not whoever controls the mind of the people controls power. Once you can get your own to hold the authority of the party, it doesn’t really matter, you can manipulate anybody and choose your president and choose your governors. This is the problem.

Does it mean you agree to the fact that PDP and APC are the same and they have failed because the focus has been a self-inflicted crisis within the parties, personalities and clash of ego?

The truth of the matter is that I’m not to sit down here and lie to Nigerians. The truth of the matter is that there is hardly any difference no matter what anybody says; there is hardly any difference between the two political parties. And it is quite obvious. Fifty per cent of those who control power in APC today were all PDP guys. Take for example my state, Ogun, the present governor was PDP, Amosun was PDP, Gbenga Daniel was PDP but they are APC today. So, the truth is that it is not a criticism but a statement of fact. The fact is that truly speaking, there is not much difference politically and otherwise between the two parties.

Do you also agree that the resolution reached by the PDP to bring forward the convention does not fix the core challenges of the party?

What happened in PDP with the resolution you talked about is that it was a matured move to defuse tension and to control the burning fire. The fire has not been put out but the smokes have gone down. I would prefer a situation where the real issues that concern the country is what we are debating and struggling about as an opposition party as you rightly said. Truly, by now, we should be ready with a manifesto, and it doesn’t matter who the presidential candidate is because it is the testament, document and our agreement we are promising the electorate. So, that is what the candidate is going to follow but what we have in the country today are people without vision and direction. What you are going to do, we do not know and what your party is going to do, we do not know and nobody really cares. We go round the country raise flags and dance with no substance. This is not only about PDP, the performances of the political parties are abysmally poor and we taking people for granted. In this country, people go to bed with empty stomach, health system is so bad and economy is terrible because if you go to the market twice a day for the same item the prices changes. This should really form challenges for our political parties but they don’t. None of the two major parties, APC or PDP, can you hold on to any national issue. They don’t have a position on restructuring. On state police and many things that are of national importance, you cannot say this is PDP’s position or APC’s position and yet they produce president. It is a joke.

The scenario you have painted shows that there is no hope for Nigerians. How can we bring about the third force or a new group of people, who can change things? Secondly, while you were in the PDP, did you raise some of these concerns because you have served in government?

I will start from you last question, I never held any major political office in the PDP. I have been in the government and presidency, the presidency is different from the politics. My concern during the period that I served in the government had been to project the images of the president that I serve and to advise them and to put in the little I can. Majorly, my job was to project the political image of the president I serve. I didn’t really have any role to play within the party as such. It is not that there is no hope for Nigeria, there is hope for Nigeria but it is a very tight situation and I will tell you why. If you really look at it and you are talking about third force, it will not work in Nigeria. We have to do with the parties that we have. There is a possibility and I must give it to you that people from the left and people from the right may come somehow to the centre and create a new movement. If that is what you are going to call a third force, I will give it to you but the truth is that Nigeria should not dream of bringing people from Ghana or other countries to fix this country. If we must do something afresh, we must go back to the basis and the structure of the parties as well as their funding. A situation, where if you want to be a governor, you must spend N6 billion, is not acceptable. If I cannot say I want to be governor of my state, where I was born based on pedigree and what I have done with my life that it has to be based on the money in my pocket, you don’t have any right to question me. The people who collected N6 billion or N7 billion from candidates also smoked their chances because people will not vote for you unless you give them money. The problem we are having in the country today, I must say publicly, is because of the poor mindset of our political elites. Then, who are the Nigerian elites, they come from our various communities and our various communities are basically corrupt. It is like they say in Italy, ‘If the College of Cardinals is bad, the Pope cannot be good.’

Ahead of 2023, what kind of president do you think Nigeria should have in 2023?

Our focus is wrong. In this country today, where the level of distrust among citizens is so high, the hatred that we have generated among ourselves and for ourselves is unbelievable. Nigeria doesn’t need any expert or technocrat because the government must be an interim government to the new Nigeria of our dream. The next government must be a government headed by somebody who can heal the nation because without healing the nation all your economic theories will become flat. The next government must be a government that will heal the nation and reunite the people and pay very serious attention to the poor among us and to the middle class, who despite the fact that they are labouring every day are still living terrible lives. So, we are looking for a politician, who is well grounded in politics and has the fear of God in his mind and is humble enough to be concerned with the welfare of majority of Nigerians. Ninety per cent of Nigerians do not derive any benefit from their government, from the wealth of their nation and from the revenues collected. All the projects the government is doing only benefit the presidency, legislators, civil servants, the Doyin Okupe’s of this world and foreigners.

But the Federal Government has a social intervention scheme aimed at reaching out to vulnerable households?

That is very commendable and we have to go a step further than that. We have to actively take a decision to look after the poor among us, and it is the failure to do this that has resulted to banditry. Whether you like or not, it is their exclusion from the main largess that has led to all banditry and kidnapping you are seeing. And unless we critically address them, things will not change. All that the politicians are interested in now is the 2023 general election.

If you are to do a shortlist of possible presidential candidates, what would be your shortlist?

Let me start from Bola Tinubu; to me he will be a good president. I believe so and because I have had personal relationship with him. One day I sat with Tinubu so many years ago and it was on a Saturday and there was nobody there for about four hours. We talked and from that day I have respected the man. He has his own problems and faults but I believe that if he has a chance, he can do well but whether he will have the chance or not, I do not know. My take really is that in the next dispensation, the next president of Nigeria must be a southerner. It has to be because all the stories about some people have not had enough tenure will not fly. The truth of the matter is that a northerner would have occupied the position for eight years by 2023 and in terms of morality, good relationship and national unity, it does not make sense for another northerner to occupy the presidency for the next eight years. It is not going to work.

When you say southerner, we have the South-West, South- South and South-East. What is your shortlist from the south?

I think General Ibrahim Babangida got it right that the next president should be somebody who can pick up his phone and call at least one person in every local government of the federation. That means it is somebody who has moved around, who has socially interacted with all sections of Nigeria and understands the terrain. He also said those in their 60s; so I can join the race because I’m in my 60s.

Would you join the race?

It is not an impossible thing and I think that by what Babngida has actually said. I have a feeling that he had me in mind. Believe me sincerely, there is no local government in this country that I have not visited five times. And I’m the most really well-prepared person to be president. You know why, I have twice served in the presidency. Not just serving as an aide but as a friend, associate and confidant of the president. I have seen them handle the country. If you are going to do that table properly, I, Doyin Okupe, should be number one. Then the next most qualified person must be Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. Also using the same yardstick I used for myself, Osinbajo in the last couple of years has been number two man. He might not have been active properly; that is the internal politics of APC and this presidency. He is the vice president and a he is also a very intelligent human being. He falls dangerously short on politics and that is his problem. We need somebody with an A in politics for this next president that we need. Another person that I will really consider is Peter Obi. He is super excellent. He fits the bill but the problem is the politics of Nigeria and I do not want to expand on that but Obi to me is a highly qualified person to be the president of Nigeria. That is if I’m not running. If I’m running, I come above the two names I have mentioned to you.

What is this politics of Nigeria; is it that the South-East is not good enough to produce the president of Nigeria?

If we are to really speak the truth, the next president should come from the South-East. That is the truth of the matter but politics is a game of numbers. You have to be able to play the game. It is either the majority makes a concession to you because that was how Obasanjo became the president. It is not the Yorubas won anything, but the North conceded and concessioned the president to the South-West.

We got to have a situation where the whole country may have to concession because every zone in the South is a minority. The South-West is a minority on its own, the South- South is a minority on its own and the South-East is a minority on its own. But if you look at the North- West and the North-East, there is some understanding and we cannot pretend as if we don’t know the fact that they tend to go along the same way. That is 13 states already and the North-West is the largest voting region in the country. So, you cannot discountenance that.

So, we got to come to a national conclusion and say the two main parties should pick their presidential candidates from South-East. If you can’t get that done, it will be difficult for anybody whether from the South-West, South-East or South-South to be president.

We have not reached the stage, where like I said, your pedigree, qualification and experience will speak for you round the whole country. Somebody in Sokoto apart from television does not know who Doyin Okupe is. So, he is going to vote for whoever his bosses, leaders and chiefs tell him to vote for because they are the ones who go to Abuja, Lagos and who know southerners.

The issue is that Nigeria is divided religiously, they will not tell you this but it is true. Religion matters in Nigerian politics. Ethnicity matters in Nigerian politics. There are a few people today who are contesting for Nigeria’s presidency just because they come from a particular ethnic location of the country otherwise they have no business running for the office. We are still at that low level of political dispensation. We have not gone beyond that and we must accept it.

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