Former Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, says the Peoples Democratic Party’s loss in the last general elections was caused by the immediate past Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, and the card readers used for the elections and not former President Goodluck Jonathan. He said:
“That Jonathan was an error is in itself a grand fallacy which totally undermines the whole truth about the sanctity and correctness of the wisdom of the PDP National Executive Committee which made and ratified that decision.
“All over the world when an incumbent signifies an intention for a second term, it is customary that the established machinery of the party wholly backs and gratifies such an intention.
“If any error was made, it was firstly the failure of the PDP administration to sack the unfair and compromised electoral officer who was allowed to conduct the election in spite of his obvious and profuse partisanship.
“The second error was the inexplicable acquiescence of the PDP government to the use of the infamous card reader which was skillfully manipulated to the disadvantage of the PDP presidential candidate.”
Okupe said Jonathan was too good to be the candidate of the PDP. He said if Jonathan had acted like the typical sit-tight African President, the PDP would still be in power. He said:
“The third error of the PDP was to have fielded a good, God-fearing and patriotic man, who in spite of his enormous power, the avalanche of deployable arsenal of war at his disposal, transformed himself to be the victim and refused to fight so that his countrymen may live and his nation survived. The situation in Burundi today is highly instructive.”
The former Presidential aide maintained that history would be kind to Jonathan for his act of conceding defeat to President Muhammadu Buhari. He said if fielding Jonathan was an error, it would be an error which posterity would cherish Okupe added:
“Certainly, history will treat Goodluck Jonathan as one of the greatest heroes of this generation of African leaders; definitely not an error by any stretch of the imagination.”
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