Okupe: Presidents don’t resign during war

Doyin Okupe, senior special assistant to the president on public affairs, says the All Progressives Congress (APC) is desperate for power.

Responding to the call of Bola Tinubu, the national leader of APC, that President Goodluck Jonathan should resign based on the insurgency in the northeast, Okupe said nowhere does a president resign during a war, describing most members of the opposition party as “overzealous”.

Tinubu made the call during his speech at the second term declaration of Abdulfatah Ahmed, governor of Kwara state.

However, Okupe carpeted the opposition leader, urging Nigerians to disregard such comment.

“The assertion by Tinubu at a political rally in Ilorin, Kwara State, on Wednesday that in ‘civilised’ societies, the president should have resigned is unfounded and lacking in historical precedence,” he said in a statement.

“The suggestion that President Goodluck Jonathan resign from office as a result of the activities of insurgents in the north-eastern part of the country has once again shown beyond doubt that the former Lagos state governor and his colleagues in the opposition are a bunch of political anarchists and charlatans blinded by an unbridled appetite for power.

“It is therefore unfortunate that the APC, in its desperation for power and eagerness to make selfish political gains from insecurity, has shown a total lack of the spirit of nationalism and statesmanship in its public comments on the challenges of insurgency in the north east.

“It is particularly sad that leaders of the APC would mount every available podium to pour invectives on the president and ridicule members of the armed forces of Nigeria who are in the battlefield of the war against terror in the North East of this country.

“Telling the President to resign because of an ongoing insurgency is the height of insensitive, indecorous and bad politics which ought to be roundly condemned by every Patriotic Nigerian.

“We wish to the remind the likes of Senator Tinubu that by the provisions of the Nigerian constitution, the only recognized means of changing a government is through the electoral process which comes every four years.

“We challenge him to tell Nigerians which part of the world where there was a call on a president to resign during an on-going war.”

On Tuesday, Okupe also directed veiled criticism at Atiku Abubakar, a former vice-president and a presidential candidate under the platform of APC, over comments that Atiku made on insurgency.