Okupe: Tinubu didn’t steal anybody’s mandate — Obi couldn’t have won 2023 election

Doyin Okupe, a former director-general of the Labour Party (LP) presidential campaign, says President Bola Tinubu legitimately won the 2023 election.

Okupe, who resigned from LP after the polls — based on “ideological grounds”— has continuously praised Tinubu’s administration.

Speaking in Lagos on Thursday, Okupe said Peter Obi, LP’s presidential candidate in 2023, could not have won the keenly contested election.

“If Peter Obi or the Labour Party says APC rigged elections, how come Obi was able to win in the home base of President Bola Tinubu?,” NAN quoted Okupe as saying.

“How come APC lost election in the home base of the sitting President (Muhammadu Buhari)? How come APC lost election in the home base of the Secretary to that government.

“So, the accusations about rigging do not hold water; they do not hold water at all.

“The truth of the matter is that under the best of conditions, the results we got may not have been the exact results, but they will have that ratio.

“I was in a Labour Party; we couldn’t have done better than we did. I know that for some reasons, but that is a discussion for another day.”

Okupe said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and LP are “unrealistic” in their allegations that “the presidency was stolen”.

He added that every election conducted in the country since 1960 has been “rigged” in some way.

“Perhaps, an exception was MKO Abiola’s election because of the unique nature of the voting pattern,” he said.

“You know it was Option A4; people were counted. Apart from that, every other election was rigged.”

Speaking further, Okupe expressed confidence that Tinubu’s policies will start yielding concrete results from his second term in office.

“Tinubu is like the late Premier of the defunct Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, with great ideas about public policies,” he said.

“The president is a reformer. It is a total nonsense to say that he came to the office without a plan.

“I have worked with two past presidents. I have studied other presidents closely from a very close point.

“I do not know any Nigerian president from 1960 to date who has come more armed, better prepared for governance than this gentleman.

“Unfortunately for him, he has come into government at a very terrible and awful time.”

Okupe implored Nigerians to support the Tinubu administration’s efforts towards ensuring lasting peace and economic development.