Nigeria: APC will Crumble and Disappear by 2014, Says Doyin Okupe

The Senior Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, Tuesday described the merger of opposition political parties on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as a weak association that would crumble and disappear by 2014, a year to the general election. Okupe, who paid a courtesy visit to THISDAY corporate office in Apapa, Lagos, dismissed the view that the merger would rout the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the next election, noting that the forces behind the merger are not serious-minded people capable of causing a major upset in national politics. While hinging his prediction on the projection that the president’s joker, which is stable electricity, would have been attained by 2014, Okupe noted that if stable power which is critical to the opposition would be punctured and rendered ineffective. “Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Maj-Gen. Mohammadu Buhari are not serious-minded people; they are going round like people dancing in a market place. I expect that when you post an aggregate of people of that calibre, who want to run government, by now they must have a policy statement on power, agriculture and employment and not just talking about PDP leaving. “Is it by mouth that they will run the nation? These are not serious-minded people. Can someone get your vote by using word of mouth that PDP should leave without a policy?

“Tinubu has ridden roughshod over the South-west. But Nigeria is bigger than that. This is their first time out in national politics; alright, and let me give you some bad news: the relevance that ACN has in Nigerian politics is that they are a Yoruba party. That is what makes them relevant in politics and by dropping that toga, the party is dead. “They have just formed an abyss; a formless abyss that the Yoruba cannot key-into. The Yoruba have always been members of a regional organisation – Action Group (AG) , Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), etc. And in any case, what are the electoral credentials of ACN? How many states have they won that they are boasting? continued