A former presidential aide Doying Okupe has cautioned the 2023 Presidential candidates of the PDP and Labour Party, LP, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi over their 2027 presidential ambitions.
The former aide to President Goodluck Jonathan said the two polticians are qualified to contest the next presidential election, but have no capacity to dislodge President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who he said is currently ‘doing well’.
Okupe spoke on Thursday to the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, saying the current -geo-politics in the country favours President Tinubu.
Both Abubakar and Obi have been rumoured to be interested in the 2027 presidential election, and have been making efforts to achieved their aims of leading the country at the highest stage.
According to him, Abubakar failed in the 2023 Presidential election not because he’s not a ‘good man’ but because the country’s power dynamics did not favour him.
Okupe, who served as the Director General for the LP Presidential campaign last year said President Tinubu should be allowed to remain in office for eight years in line with the power sharing arrangement between the North and south.
He explained that the north has had its fair share of power during the tenure of President Muhammadu Buhari, who was in office for eight years, and now is the turn of the south with Tinubu in power.
The magazine reports that President Buhari came to office in 2025 and left in 2023.
He said, “If Atiku still contests in 2027, he has a right. He is eminently qualified and one of the best we have, but geopolitics is an issue. The conditionality persists, a southerner would have just completed four years and needs another four-year term.
“It’s not in the constitution, but we agree that when a northerner does his eight years, a southerner will do. So, the north cannot now terminate the tenure of the south in 2027. It is not going to work.”
He added, “Obi can contest. Obi is a young man, very dynamic and very ambitious; but geopolitics is important in a country that has not achieved horizontal and vertical unity,” he said.
“The person who is occupying the place right now, Tinubu, is also a southerner, who is doing well. We can see what this gentleman (Tinubu) is doing. I wish Obi luck, but it is going to be an uphill task.”
Instructively, reports claimed that Abubakar and Obi are considering working together ahead the next presidential election, to ease out the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC from power.
Discover more from The Source
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
