Director General of the Labour Party (LP) presidential campaign movement, otherwise known as the OBIdient Political Movement (OPM), Dr. Doyin Okupe has said that the merger plan with the New Nigerian People’s Party (NNPP) has failed.
Okupe spoke during a Channels TV discussion progrmame Tuesday evening.
Responding to a question on the future of the alliance that was to pair Peter Obi of the LP and Musa Kwankwaso of the NNPP for the presidential race, Okupe said “that plan is capital d-e-a-d, dead.
“I say that because I am the person that started the discussion in the first place because I felt the two needed to team up to upturn the old political calculation that has not helped Nigeria over the years.
“But when Kwankawaso started sounding superior and claiming to be the senior and more experienced, we understood that he doesn’t understand the trend of the time.
“How can someone who has no following beyond his Kwakwasiya in Kano be discussing with a candidate that the entire Nigerian youths are dying to have with such misplaced arrogance? He decided not to accept that beyond Kano, his Kwankwasiya is strange. But even now, we are sure that Obi’s movement will achieve that alone.
Politics is not about seniority. Even, though I am older than Obi, I gave up my ambition because I read the signs clearly.
Apart from Kano, where else can Kwankwaso boast of having a foothold. I think he is overrating himself and has lost touch with reality.”
Okupe debunked as erroneous the claims that Obi’s support base is just on social media. He asked his host if anyone knew or envisaged in 1993 that MKO Abiola would win Bashir Tofa, a Kano man and opponent, even in Kano. He said Nigerians should not rule out such a possibility in what he described as the most sweeping political awareness movement in entire Africa.
“The youths of this country want Obi to change things and rescue Nigeria and their future. I found out from Kwankwaso’s position that he is not actually contesting for the good of Nigeria, but his ego, like the rest of the old order. If he was contesting to heal Nigeria, then he should have known that Obi is the senior because of the acceptability of the young voters across Nigeria.
I want to let him and other Nigerians know that they live in dreams to think or harp on a structure before Obi wins. What structure wins an election other than the masses and voters.
Obi has gone far beyond a regional thing. Some candidates can boast of ethnic affinity and stronghold, but Obi boasts of nationwide standing with the young population of voters which we all know are in the majority.
I was in my hometown today and I met young people telling me that they are OBIdient.
By next week, after we would have put the strategy in place, we would roll out our plans and Nigerians would be shocked to see that the northern youths belong to the OBIdient movement because they are also victims like the rest of the Nigerian young people.”
Okupe said that “any contestant or party the OBIdient movement wants to identify with should embrace it gladly because the movement has already swept through Nigeria and the young people are not going to stop because they have seen in Obi what positive future they had been praying for.”
