By Emmanuel Aziken
John Wayne’s words that “a man is only as good as his word” shine through in the political appraisal of the person and politics of Dr Doyin Okupe.
Okupe burst into the political limelight as one of the leading lights of the defunct National Republican Convention, NRC in the late nineties. His seemingly conservative inclination was in contradiction to the overwhelming left of centre ideals that prevailed in the Southwest.
Whatever, Okupe was seen as a man who was not easily moved by the crowd. His bulky frame augmented by his deep baritone conveyed the impression of a man who would not succumb.
Indeed, Dr Okupe has been through the kind of adversities that would ordinarily bend a man of lesser fettle.
One of the easiest marks on his body is the fact that Okupe has repeatedly been disclaimed by his constituents in his quest for political validation by constituents. His bid for election to the House of Representatives on the platform of the National Party of Nigeria, NPN in the Second Republic was rejected. His other bid for the governorship of Ogun State have also ended in failure.
However, where he failed in projecting himself to electable public office, Okupe was, however, more successful in burnishing the image of political collaborators.
Okupe espouses Christian principles with resounding testimonies of God’s dealings in his life. However, when exactly he had his Damascus experience with God is not known.
Okupe’s unique example of political sagacity and refusal to join other NRC collaborators in pulling down the Third Republic gave him as a man of truth. Whereas nearly all other NRC chiefs called for the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election won by the Social Democratic Party, SDP’s Chief Moshood Abiola, Okupe stood out in standing by the truth of that election.
It was this trait of political veracity that shone out in Okupe in the days leading to the 2023 General Election.
How Okupe teamed up with Peter Obi is not generally known. He was one of the experienced political giants who morphed the political energies that sprouted around the 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP into one of the most formidable political forces in recent Nigerian history.
The Punch of July 1, 2022 reported Okupe as deriding the established political giants who had considered the Obidient phenomenon as ephemeral.
“Many who deride and mock us that we have no structure will weep and gnash their teeth when Obi is elected President in 2023.
“These folks underestimate the power of a youthful population who have resolved irrevocably to take their country back and also the network of the Nigeria Labour Congress and its affiliates.”
Okupe was forced to step down as Obi’s campaign manager in December 2022 after he was convicted of a misdemanour. However, what many did not know at that time was that his health also at that time was also suffering.
Incidentally just as the election came and went, Okupe also went underground reportedly brought down by health issues.
When he reappeared after the inauguration, the image of a gaunt Okupe sufficiently reduced in size was shocking. The shock in his physical emaciation was compounded by the whisper in his voice. Gone was the bold baritone voice as Okupe to the shock of those Obidients he once marshalled began to renounce his recent political proclivities. What happened to Okupe some asked.
During COVID when he was quarantined, Dr Okupe spoke of how he prayed for 10 hours daily. The prayers then was to God Almighty. After his latest illness it seemed as if this time he met a different ‘god of man’. Some have inferred that he probably had a secret meeting with President Bola Tinubu who he has now made a god.
The conspiratorial tale on such an encounter with Asiwaju is premised on his disavowal of almost all the principles he built a once stellar reputation of political perspicacity. His insights today are now shaded by his ethnic considerations.
Even in the midst of the harrowing hardships in the land, unrivalled nepotism that makes President Muhammadu Buhari a nationalist, Okupe was this week defending the indefensible.
Despite saying that he cannot publicly attack Peter Obi given the notable role he played in managing the Labour Party candidate in 2023, Okupe, however, from time to time these days easily picks on his former principal, sometimes even twisting the words of Obi out of context. A man once hailed as a nationalist with that amiable Yoruba spirit of welcoming men from all races, he has now reduced himself to a Yoruba zealot all in defence of President Tinubu.
As if recruited on a project to destroy Peter Obi ahead of 2027 for the benefit of Tinubu, our Egbon Okupe emits the visage and verbal articulations of a man in violent conflict with his past.
In his outing on Channels Television earlier this week he sternly rebuked critics of his new identity in the Tinubu ‘Amen Corner’. According to him, those criticising him today for his paranoid passion for Tinubu are ignorant. We are indeed ignorant. We don’t know what passed on behind closed doors.
However, it suffices to assert that how Dr Okupe succeeds in battering the reputation he built up over the past 40 years of political stoicism will define his legacy.
@Vanguard
