Senior Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, has declared that the northern part of Nigeria is being deceived by the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
Okupe expressed belief that Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of the APC, would not be able to re-contest in 2019 if he eventually wins the 2015 presidential election.
The game plan, according to Okupe, is that if Buhari cannot contest in 2019, the presidency would return to the South-western region of the country.
Okupe, while speaking with journalists in Abuja, said northern politicians had miscalculated the calculations of Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos State as they are led into thinking that he is in support of their course.
“He (Buhari) is a Northerner and if he cannot run for election again, then, the thing should go back to the South. So, would the North be satisfied with only four years?” Okupe said.
“These are the issues. That is why I am saying this 2015 election is beyond Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari. It is a matter of national stability.”
He also said the northern politicians and people were over-relying on Tinubu, thinking that he is the leader of the Yoruba race. According to him, as a result of this, the northern politicians jettisoned notable people in the Southwest, the South-south and the South-east and only relied on Tinubu.
“The North miscalculated this time around because they assumed wrongly that Bola Tinubu was the leader of the Yoruba race, and that if they can strike a deal with him, they have got the South-West,” he noted, adding that people like General Adeyinka Adebayo, Richard Akinjide, Olunloyo and many others had been abandoned by the northern people.
Akinjide is a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain and has been championing President Jonathan’s re-election bid in the South-west.
