2023 Election Was Not Rigged, LP Couldn’t Have Done Better – Okupe

 

A former Director-General of the Labour Party (LP) Presidential Campaign, Dr. Doyin Okupe, has stated that the 2023 presidential election was not rigged by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Okupe, who was also a former spokesman for Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan, made the assertion in a statement released on Thursday in Lagos.

He questioned claims by the LP and its 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, that the APC rigged the election, pointing out that Obi was able to win in President Bola Tinubu’s home base and that the APC lost in key strongholds, including President Muhammadu Buhari’s home state.

“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,” he said.

He dismissed accusations of rigging, arguing that while rigging has been a feature in Nigerian elections since 1960, the 2023 election’s results were not far from expectations, saying, “There’s nothing like that. No presidency was stolen. I am not saying there was no rigging. There was no election that we have done in Nigeria since 1960 till date that was not rigged one way or the other.

“Not one. Perhaps, an exception was MKO Abiola’s election because of the unique nature of the voting pattern. You know it was Option A4, people were counted. Apart from that, every other election was rigged.”

Turning to President Tinubu’s leadership, Okupe expressed confidence in his ability to lead the country, noting that while the challenges Tinubu faces are immense, particularly given Nigeria’s economic difficulties, he believed the president’s policies would start to show results within two years.

READ: T-Pain Means Temporary Pain, Tinubu Will Win Again – Okupe

According to Okupe, Tinubu’s administration is poised for reform and has impressed him with its development-focused approach, describing the president as someone “capable of deep thinking,” noting that Tinubu had policies and ideologies at his fingertips, which he considered a natural gift. “This thing, you don’t learn it. It’s a gift.”

Okupe drew a parallel between Tinubu and the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, describing the president as a reformer with well-thought-out policies, stating: “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.”

He further explained that holding Tinubu accountable for Nigeria’s decades-long issues would be unfair, as the president needed time to implement his reforms.

“Unfortunately for him, he has come into government at a very terrible and awful time. It is going to be a couple of years of pain and hardship, but he is doing what other presidents for the last 10 years or 20 years have refused to do.

“The choice he had was to run and was to come into governance and just continue business as usual. By the time he came to the government, 98 per cent of our revenue generated was being used to pay debt.”

He concluded by urging Nigerians to support the president in tackling the nation’s challenges.

“We need a minimum of two years for some of his policies to begin to produce results,” Okupe said.