- They want to bring us down politically but won’t give up – Tanko
- Only morally bankrupt party will engage Okupe, says analyst
BY TIMOTHY AGBOR, OSOGBO
Some chieftains of the Labour Party have insisted that the party would emerge victorious at the 2023 general elections notwithstanding the exit of the Director General of the Presidential Campaign Council, Doyin Okupe.
Okupe, a former Senior Special Assistant on Media to former President Goodluck Jonathan, had on Tuesday evening, stepped down from his position in the party after he was convicted of money laundering by a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Monday.
He announced his resignation in a letter addressed to Peter Obi, Labour Party’s presidential candidate, and dated December 20, 2022.
Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu had on Monday sentenced the former presidential aide to a 52-year jail term after he was convicted for money laundering and diversion of funds.
Okupe was arraigned on a 59-count charge of money laundering by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for accepting N204 million from the former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, in 2014.
Justice Ojukwu found the defendant guilty in 26 out of the 59 charges. She ordered that the 26 charges which attract a two-year jail term each, would run concurrently.
The judge, however, gave the convict an option of N500, 000 fines in each of the counts, totaling N13 million of which the convict paid thus preventing him from being taken to Kuje Correctional Centre in Abuja.
Reacting on Tuesday while speaking on a television programme monitored by our correspondent, Yinusa Tanko, the Chief spokesperson for Labour Party Presidential Campaign, said the development took the party unawares, he said, “we will come out strong. We won’t allow ourselves to be distracted. We will sojourn on and face our campaigns. We won’t be demoralized.
He said the target of Okupe’s conviction is Peter Obi, saying the party would emerge victorious at the poll.
“The target is actually Peter Obi. As we keep on moving, we will not be deterred by any form of allegation that is targeted towards derailing our focused agenda of securing Nigeria. We will sojourn on and face our campaigns accordingly and decisions will be made according to our dictates and what we epitomize.”
He said the matter hasn’t cast aspersion on the integrity of the Labour Party, saying, “You and I know that the matter is not about Yinusa Tanko or Doyin Okupe, or the Vice Presidential Candidate of the party, it was actually targeted at Peter Obi. The people around him are being used as puns. We call on Nigerians not to be distracted because we know their game. We represent the whole of Nigeria.
“We will come out stronger from this particular attack. Our followers are convinced and know that we are under attack politically, physically and spiritually. They want to bring us down but the thing is, the more they attack us, the more they make us popular. We won’t deviate,” he insisted.
Also speaking in an interview, Bode Babalola, a chieftain of the Labour Party and Senatorial Candidate for Osun Central Senatorial District, said the party is different from All Progressives Congress and the People’s Democratic Party in terms of character and integrity, saying the Labour Party remains the party to beat.
“We are still different from APC and PDP. Don’t forget that when the crime alleged was committed, it wasn’t in the Labour Party, it was in the PDP. And of course, we don’t have angels anywhere. In all parties, we have one or two persons who have been alleged or convicted of one offence or the other. We have never claimed in the Labour Party that we are all angels. No! And don’t forget, we are not happy but if you look at the court pronouncements, it was because Okupe held money beyond a certain limit. Dasuki, who was accused of giving the money, was never convicted.
“Peter is not running on the character or conviction of Doyin Okupe. No one should condemn the Labour Party because of Okupe’s conviction. It’s a party to beat. The whole world has accepted the Labour Party as the only viable alternative to rescue Nigeria from the rots the APC and PDP had plunged it,” he said.
However, a political analyst, Musbau Lateef, said it would be difficult, if not impossible for any political party in Nigeria to engage Okupe again.
Lateef, a lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Hull, United Kingdom, while speaking on a radio programme monitored by The Point on Tuesday, said, “It’s a moral issue and that’s why I said that it’s only a political party who is shameless enough or even morally bankrupt enough that may want to engage somebody like him (Okupe) in any position of responsibility or trust because the point is that, he is an ex-convict as I speak.”
