Doyin Okupe, a former Director-General of the Peter Obi Presidential Campaign Organisation, praised President Bola Tinubu for his economic reforms, asserting that neither his former principal, Peter Obi, nor the Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, could have achieved better results.
Okupe shared his views during a guest appearance on Monday’s episode of Channels Television’s Politics Today.
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He said, “By benefit of hindsight, none of the three major candidates who ran for that election, except for Tinubu, could have faced this quagmire we are and have the heart to breast it.
“They don’t even have the knowledge and the resources to do what he is doing now.”
When asked whether he feels he sounds like a betrayer to Obi, whom he once called the best candidate for the position, Okupe shook his head.
Okupe explained that he had previously operated under flawed assumptions until he witnessed the courage and passion with which Tinubu was working to revive the economy.
“That was why I said by the benefit of hindsight. There is no betrayal. Has Peter Obi told you what he would do if he was president? Talk is cheap.
“It is not as if I don’t believe in Peter Obi. He was a damn good candidate when we got him. But we lost that election, and a better man won. It is a competition. I thought Obi was better than Tinubu. That was what I thought.
“But seeing what Bola Tinubu is doing and his disposition, especially after meeting him yesterday (Sunday), I am more than convinced that if this gentleman is given understanding and time, he is going to get us out of this problem,” he stated.
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When asked about his relationship with Atiku, with whom he had a close association during his time working for former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Okupe denied having any issues with him. However, he criticized the former Vice President’s suggestion that he would have performed better than the current President if elected by the Nigerian people.
He said, I am telling you, none of these other two people (Atiku and Obi) could have done better than him. That is why I said talk is cheap. Fuel subsidy has been on the table for the last 20 years. Nobody had the nerve to even try to do it.
“I read Atiku’s proposition. He said if he was the President, he would borrow $10bn and another $25bn to do something. That makes $35bn. Who is going to lend you money? By the time Buhari was leaving, Nigeria was not sellable. Nobody was going to give Nigeria $1 bn anywhere.
“Because we could not borrow money anywhere, the Buhari administration went ahead and did an illegal and unlawful thing through the ways of means and printed $21trn. So when you are faced with that, it is a quagmire. That is confounding. Only a brave man, one with mental resources and confidence in himself, can do what Bola Tinubu is doing.”
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