Dr. Doyin Okupe, Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs to former President Goodluck Jonathan, has refuted claims by the Chairman of the National Conference Organising Committee of the PDP, Chief Raymond Dokpesi, that fielding Jonathan as the party’s candidate for the 2015 presidential election was an error.
Okupe, who described Jonathan as a “hero” for conceding defeat to President Muhammadu Buhari, said the PDP’s error was made when it failed to sack the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, whom he described as “unfair and compromised”.
In a statement posted on his Facebook page, Doyin Okupe said: “The impression created in the media recently that the candidacy of Goodluck Jonathan was an error is itself a grand fallacy which totally undermined the whole truth about the sanctity and correctness of the wisdom of the PDP National Executive committee which made and ratified that decision.
“All over the World when an incumbent signifies intention for a second term it is customary that the established machinery of the party wholly backs and gratifies such intentions.”
Furthermore, Okupe went ahead to state what the PDP ought to have done to ensure success at the polls.
“If any error was made it was firstly the failure of the PDP administration to sack the unfair and compromised electoral Officer who was allowed to conduct the election in spite of his obvious and profuse partisanship.
“The second error was the inexplicable acquiescence of the PDP government to the use of the infamous Card Reader which was skilfully manipulated to the disadvantage of the PDP presidential candidate.
“The third error of the PDP was to have fielded a good, God fearing and patriotic man who in spite of his enormous power, the avalanche of deployable arsenal of war at his disposal, transformed himself to be the victim and refused to fight so that his countrymen may live and his Nation survived. The situation in Burundi today is highly instructive.
“Certainly history will treat Goodluck Jonathan as one of the greatest Heroes of this generation of African Leaders. Definitely NOT an Error by any stretch of imagination.
“I speak today not as a spokesman for President Jonathan. An episode and a proud chapter of my life which has since come to a Close. Rather I speak as a student of History and a veritable stakeholder in the Nigerian project,” he declared.