Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public
Affairs, Dr Doyin Okupe on Monday confessed that he
never thought the All Progressives Congress (APC)
would still be in existence by now. It would be recalled
that Okupe had mocked the party, saying it was
suffering from leadership deficiency shortly after it
was founded.

Okupe had said in December 2013, “What kind of
political party is that and you are taking them
seriously,” he continued, “It is a politically defective
and weak organisation, and by coming to the national
stage, the wind is going to blow them open. If they
don’t crumble and disappear by 2014, don’t call me
Okupe. The APC boat is destined for the Red Sea.”
Some reports published at the time APC was barely a
month, had it that Okupe swore that he should be
called “a bastard” if the party lasts beyond a year. He
has however denied ever making such a statement.
However, the presidential aide who spoke yesterday
during a programme on Silverbird Television,
congratulated the APC, even as he boasted that his
criticism contributed to the party’s growth.


Okupe corrected that, “I said if APC survives for a year,
I would change my name. People have said I meant
bastard, but I never said so. What I said as a political
pundit was that if APC survives, I would change my
name.”

He continued, “If Manchester United want to play with
Man City, and I say Man United would score three
goals in first half, if they don’t score three goals in the
first half, it means that my statements were wrong.


“Maybe I have actually helped them, because they
were very annoyed at my predictions and they tried to
make sure that they remain the same.”
While alleging that the media is dominated by those
who are sympathetic to the APC, Okupe rated the
administration of President Goodluck Jonathan very
high as regards performance in office and called on
Nigerians to support his re-election bid.

Stressing that “This government has achieved so much
and we are not deceiving people because our
achievements are verifiable,” he explained that “All the
24 airports in the country have been remodeled. The
Benin-Ore road used to be a death trap and people
used to spend 24 hours on it, but now they spend
three hours.

“The Lagos-Ibadan has been built since 1976 and since
then nobody has done anything about it until this
government decided to extend it to seven lanes.
“If people deliberately refuse to see and the media
continues to underpin the achievements of this
government, we would keep trying and God will justify
us. We don’t have the media behind us but we have
God behind us,” he said.

Meanwhile, Okupe contradicted himself when his host
told him that the media’s lack of sympathy to the
President was an indictment on those managing the
image of the president, stressing that “It’s not that the
opposition has taken over the media, no!

He then said “But the elements within the opposition
and the sentiments concerning the opposition have
dominated the media prior to this event of Jonathan
coming into power. Which media organisation in
Nigeria can you say the government owns? The
government does not own any media but the
opposition has tremendous influence in the media and that's unaguable

http://dailypost.ng/2015/01/27/never-thought-apc-last-long-okupe/