A former Director-General of the Labour Party (LP) Presidential Campaign, Doyin Okupe, has said that the opposition’s claim of a stolen mandate in the 2023 election does not hold water.
He argued that there might have been possibility of rigging, but no presidential mandate was stolen from the opposition.
Okupe shared his thoughts in a statement on Thursday in Lagos.
He wondered how Peter Obi was able to win in Tinubu’s home base if the election was indeed rigged.
Okupe said, “If Peter Obi (2023 LP presidential candidate) or the Labour Party says APC rigged elections, how come Obi was able to win in the home base of President Bola Tinubu?
“How come APC lost the election in the home base of the sitting president (Muhammadu Buhari)? How come APC lost the election in the home base of the secretary to that government?
“So, the accusations about rigging do not hold water; they do not hold water at all.
“The truth of the matter is that under the best of conditions, the results we got may not have been the exact results, but they will have that ratio.
“I was in the Labour Party; we couldn’t have done better than we did. I know that for some reasons, but that is a discussion for another day.”
According to him, the opposition PDP and LP appear to be unrealistic with their accusations that “the presidency was stolen.”.
Okupe added, “There’s nothing like that. No presidency was stolen. I am not saying there was no rigging.
“There was no election that we have done in Nigeria since 1960 till date that was not rigged one way or the other. Not one.
“Perhaps an exception was MKO Abiola’s election because of the unique nature of the voting pattern. You know it was Option A4; people were counted. Apart from that, every other election was rigged.”
Okupe, who expressed strong belief in Tinubu’s reforms, said that the president’s policies would begin to yield results from the second year of his administration.
The former LP chieftain said that Tinubu had impressed him not only as a politician but as a technocrat: “a man that is capable of deep thinking.”
He said that Tinubu had development ideologies and policies at his fingertips. “This thing, you don’t learn it. It’s a gift.”
The 72-year-old politician said that Tinubu was like the late Premier of the defunct Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, with great ideas about public policies.
Describing Tinubu as a reformer, Okupe said it was “total nonsense” to say that the president came to the office without a plan.