Aide to former president Goodluck Jonathan, Doyin Okupe has regarded the current president of the country, Muhammadu Buhari, as the most popular politician in the Northern Nigeria at present.
The former president’s Aide made the remark in a Facebook post over the weekend in reaction to attempts by some camp to field the PDP acting National Chairman for the party’s national chairmanship position.
Okupe maintained that the acting National Chairman of the PDP, Ali Modu Sheriff, is not be the right candidate of the party must win at the presidential level.
He added that: “Presently and for some time to come, General Buhari is the most popular Northern politician and leader alive. He stands and will likely stand shoulders taller than any politician in APC or PDP in that region.”
He further added that the PDP’s major mistake so far was that it supported his former boss, Goodluck Jonathan on the Presidential ticket for a second term.
He maintained that as such, electing a controversial Borno politician would mean repeating the mistake the party made in adopting Goodluck Jonathan as its presidential candidate in 2015.
In his post, he wrote: “The argument that because the party is weak in the north if the chairman is zoned to the north it will strengthen the party in that zone is a puerile argument,”
Adding that: “It is not supported by fact or history.”
He further stated: “In retrospect, it is regretful that based on the expedience circumstances of incumbency, we committed a politically fatal error of robbing the north of their turn to have the Presidency in 2015, and we paid dearly for it,”
“We didn’t know the northerners will be so tenacious in their determination to ensure that they have the presidency back and that is regrettable” he lamented.