Dr Doyin Okupe, former media presidential assistant, a physician and politician, made a far-reaching statement last Saturday on Labour Party’s Peter Obi’s soaring and intimidating political profile, leading to the much anticipated 2023 Presidential election.
According to Okupe, the support Peter Obi was getting was too massive for anyone to ask him to step down and abandon his campaign for former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, who is running on the platform of the PDP, adding that, a Labour Party under Obi’s presidential candidacy “will defeat APC and the PDP in 2023”.
Certainly, there must be some on-going underground consultations for the emergence of a new and vibrant political alliance that would give vent to Nigerians in their earnest and sincere search for a credible and inspiring presidential candidate who would gain the confidence of Nigerians trapped in this conundrum, this lacklustre and clearly uninspiring leadership of the Nigerian State over the years. Can’t we see the light?; the dawn of a new era in the electoral process in the choice of a true and enlightened, selfless and passionate in it’s calling, for the reconstruction of Nigeria’s seriously ailing political and economic image in such selfless union?
Perhaps, this is why our ebullient and restless Okupe has opened the lid and publicly informed us, as the publicist that he is, that PDP’s flagbearer, Atiku Abubakar was in the process of meeting with Peter Obi and NNP leader, Rabiu Kwankwaso, a moving political force in the north, to discuss possible alliance to defeat APC candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, himself a political moving train, Tsunami of no mean order and a determined presidential flagbearer of the ruling APC in the 2023 election.
In Okupe’words: “PDP’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar will meet with NNP leader, Rabiu Kwankwaso and Peter Obi to discuss a possible alliance to defeat APC candidate, Bola Tinubu”. A real Third Force has emerged, he said.
Okupe further stated that, Obi has mounted the center stage at the right time, adding that: “Both the PDP & APC have come full circle . In the current situation in Nigeria, they no longer function”.
Let’s assume that Okupe’s revelation is true and that the PDP flagbearer Atiku is ‘sincerely’ serious in meeting with Obi and Kwankwaso and their party hierachies in a bid to fashion out a way forward to rescue Nigeria from this catastrophe, exemplified in the current government. Standing on that premise, I say categorically, and I stand to be corrected or challenged though, that, the move is in the right direction and that if pursued with sincerity of purpose and with a clear road map, for its intentment, QPC is in for a tough right it least anticipated.
Now, hear this: If the PDP is truly concerned for power change and not for self aggrandizement, particularly on the part of of the movers and shakers of political power in the party but for a purposeful power shift, then the new union should also embrace the Young Peoples Party(YPP) in such a conglomeration, in kick-starting the birth of a kinetic force with the potential for the much needed dramatic political change in the country for the good of all. And more importantly, parties to this arrangement should bury their differences and see the union as politics without boundaries for the success of this cause. They should look at and act appropriately on what best suits the interest of the nation and her nationalities in these perilous times. The winning spirit and “yes, we can” spirit should be the leading light in ushering a new dispensation for the good governance of the nation and her component units, and of course, this union should, in unmistakable terms advance the cause of sustainable economic, electoral and constitutional reforms, and not the likes that are peripherally, half-heartedly and hypocritically being carried out by the National Assembly over time.
If I may suggest, the best possible way for this Third Force to assume its rightful place in the mind and conscience of the people, therefore, is the choice of a Peter Obi Presidency in this arrangement.
That appears a feasible solution under the Third Force desire for a 2023 Presidential electoral victory.
**Braeyi Ekiye, Publisher, EnvironmentWatch writes from Yenagoa.
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