Again, the Labour Party (LP), has said it is not losing sleep over what it termed the targetting of Dr. Doyin Okupe, former Director-General of the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Organisation, who was convicted on Tuesday and sent to a two-year prison term by a Federal High Court Abuja.
Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu, who, though absolved him of charges of corruption, had convicted him on a lesser offence of violating part of the Money Laundering Act, 2011, forbidding anybody in Nigeria from accepting cash in excess of N5million and above without passing through the banking system, as spokesman to ex-President, Goodluck Jonathan.
Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the party, who bemoaned the development, after describing Okupe as an ally in the dream for a new Nigeria he was determined to bring about, however accepted the former DG’s resignation from his duties, less than 24 hours after, while expressing the hope that he would clear his name through the judiciary soon.
Okupe, had blamed his “enemies” for his legal travail, saying that they had used every means necessary to fight him, but promised that they would not only be defeated in the end, but would be alive to watch him succeed in joining hands to produce a new emerging Nigeria.
He wrote: “God is not man. The enemies have tried in so many ways but keep failing…Victory is of God. Lies, fabrication and disinformation are their tools.
“But in the end they will fail and be shamed. Doyin Okupe has not chopped any shishi neither has he shifted base by 1mm!!!
“We are moving forward till God delivers us all from perpetual raiders of this lost but glorious ark. Naija.”
Echoing the sentiment on Wednesday, Kenneth Okonkwo, spokesman of the LP-PCO, while appearing on The Morning Show, a breakfast programme on Arise Television on Wednesday, described the development as a political ambush against the party.
“We do not have anything to worry about, because the best they have gotten is that the man made an honest mistake. But look at PDP, we have President Olusegun Obasanjo, who happened to be the only principal that Atiku Abubakar ever served as a political appointee said Atiku is one of the most corrupt human beings on earth. The only principal that can appraise him.
“Wike said Ayu is the most corrupt National Chairman on record. He said he collected many billions of naira and that Atiku is aware of it. Has he resigned? So, when you talk about comparison, the worst of Labour Party is still better than the best of the PDP and APC combined,” he said.
