Politics

Okupe: Report on Obi’s hatred for northerners aimed at damaging his acceptance

The Director-General of Peter Obi Presidential Campaign Organisation and vice-presidential of the Labour Party, Doyin Okupe, has lashed out at the report that his principal hates northerners.

Okupe said the report by one AG Mahmoud was aimed at damaging the “growing national acceptance” of Obi and incense northern electorate against his candidacy.

He made this known via a statement issued and made available to The Star on Sunday.

He stated: “Without any iota of doubt the entire write-up is a well-written “treatise” aimed at damaging the growing national acceptance of Peter Obi and incense the electorate of the north against his candidacy.

“I will not argue on the authenticity of the accusations or the merit or demerit of the venomous write-up. I will rather mention here that over the years we have all offended on another and committed acts that stoke the embers of hatred on all sides. And this is applicable to all ethnic groups, Hausas, Fulani, Yoruba, Igbos, southern and northern minorities, all across the entire Nigerian communities.

“For a fact, the whole nation went to war against a single ethnic group, the Igbos. This tribe were on the receiving end of a 3year war. We all know how devastating that war was on the Igbos, psychologically, financially, emotionally, and positional in the scheme of things in Nigeria. Those who bore the brunt of the evil of that war cannot be said to be in a loving relationship with their assailants.

“The north up till today has not forgiven the Igbos for the role of the five Majors during the 1966 coup. Also, the east holds it against the west that the late leader of the Yorubas finally dropped off from his initial support of the secession plan only to later team up with the federal government against Biafra.

“The Yorubas on their own side hold it against Zik, the Igbo leader that he dumped Chief Awolowo to later form government with the North, led by Alhaji Balewa. Or how can we not mention the visceral pains the Yorubas feel for the annulment of MKO Abiola’s election and his subsequent demise!

“So it is that in our past we all have offended, maltreated, and jeopardized the interest of one another. We have come to a point in our natural history when we must bury the pains and intrinsic hatred we feel, begin the process of healing and of forgiving one another.

“Going the route as copiously espoused by AG Mahmoud in his write-up is to expose the nation to an ill and foul wind that does no good to anyone or any section of the country.”

Okupe further stated the youths “who increasingly support Peter Obi are moved with the passion to rescue their lives and reset the country for greater, brighter and a better future which presently is being threatened by the very sentiments being propagated by AG Mahmoud.”

The Labour Party vice-presidential candidate, however, enjoined Nigerians “for the sake of a better and greater future that a Peter Obi’s leadership guaranty’s to exercise greatest restraints in the type of negative sentiments we bring up just to score political goals.”

The Star