•Prays he doesn’t run on LP platform again

•Insists every election in Nigeria was rigged

By Prisca Sam-Duru

Former presidential spokesperson of the Labour Party, Dr Doyin Okupe’s interview during the week must have put to rest speculations on what was responsible for his new look.

Dr Okupe revealed his battle with cancer for the second time and what led to his weight loss while featuring on Channels Television’s Political Paradigm on Tuesday.

During the interview, he also shared information about his new-found love – Jesus Christ as well as his new job of evangelism.

On whether the weight loss was as a result of surgery or discipline, he said, “It’s part in part, the first problem was cancer. Chemotherapy makes you lose appetite, you have nausea, and if that is sustained for several months, you lose weight. When I started chemotherapy, I was 127kg, and then I came down to 97kg…the chemotherapy ended and I went back to 103kg.” Continuing, he revealed how being on a fluid fast contributed. “I wasn’t eating any food at all except carrot juice with some nutrients, plants for 30 days and I lost an additional 10kg. Today I’m between 92 and 93.”

According to Okupe, for someone like him who cherished food, sheer determination helped him pull through.

“I love food, I love eating; I eat good food. But now I don’t even care, I don’t eat anything and whenever I do, it’s in moderation; not like before. Now, I don’t crave food. I’m just grateful to God. I see typical benefits and it’s difficult for me to go back to my old ways; my hypertension has gone, diabetes is under very serious control, sleep problems have disappeared,” he explained.

While reiterating his resolve never to go back, he corrected his interviewer who congratulated him for beating cancer. “I didn’t beat cancer; God beat cancer. This is the second time I was having cancer. The first one was 16 years ago; prostate cancer. The second one was sarcoma; cancer of the soft tissues of my right shoulder. In all this, I bear witness to God and Jesus Christ. God said ‘I am the maker of heaven and earth, is there something impossible or difficult for me to do?’ And I testify to the fact that there’s absolutely nothing that God cannot do. I am a testimony to that fact. There’s a lot that God has done for me. From now on, I’ve become an evangelist of Christ. I’m an ordained evangelist and that is what my main job is going to be hereafter.”

It was time to talk about politics. Evang. Dr Okupe as he wished to be known now, had an opportunity to explain some of his misunderstood statements about the Labour Party. Since the day he called the Labour Party a special purpose vehicle, he had been vilified. So, recalling some of his exploits in politics, he said, “I’m too old to run away from the truth. The truth of the matter is what I said and Peter Obi, God bless him, he is my witness. He and I felt what was going on in PDP was inimical to what we wanted to do. So, it was for that reason we agreed; both of us and those who believed in us to leave PDP. We left PDP. We were already campaigning for the candidacy of Peter Obi. We gained some ground and were welcome.

The Obidient Movement was in its formative stage then, and the reception we were receiving all over the country was overwhelming and highly encouraging. We didn’t want to abandon that because there was no exclusivity in PDP, so we were looking for a special purpose vehicle. That means we needed a platform that would give us an opportunity to express our desire, which was for Obi to become president of Nigeria. And the Labour Party graciously gave us the best condition. We spoke to SDP, we spoke to other parties. But the Labour Party didn’t demand money from us; they were so welcoming. We did not win the election; that purpose has expired.”

Throwing more light, he said, “I am a born capitalist. I’m not Labour but I don’t have anything against Labour people. I’m a free enterprise, a liberal capitalist, that’s why, I don’t see any difference between Obi and myself.”

Okupe who agreed that there has always been division between the Obidients and Labour Party, attributed it to “clearly distinct ideological contradictions,” adding that “Most Obidients are young, many of whom are entrepreneurs. They just found in Obi a personality that they could politically invest in; that does not make them politicians. Nobody should try to make them politicians; they are just political activists. They should be encouraged but there’s no need for Abure or the stakeholders in the Labour Party to force them to join the party. There are many people who love to follow Peter Obi who are not Obidients and are not Labour, they are voters.”

Asked if it’s possible for the dissenting voices to impede Obi’s progress towards achieving his goal in 2027 in case he runs under the Labour Party, he prayed Obi will not run under Labour Party. “I have been in politics for more than 40 years. I was 28 when I joined politics and today, I’m 72. With the totality of my experience, I’m saying that the Labour Party is extremely handicapped. You cannot win an election in a country like Nigeria without having structures. One of the greatest things that worked against our election last time was that we just existed in the minds of the people. This is a third world country where anything goes. I’ve heard people talk about how Bola Tinubu rigged the election. I’ve participated in every election in Nigeria since 1983 and as a principal since 1998, I can tell you with authority, there’s no election held in this country that was not rigged; not one. The closest to fair election we had was MKO Abiola’s because of the peculiarity of the voting pattern,” he added.

Careful not to sound like he was supporting rigging, he said, “We must put structures down that will make it impossible for people to rig. I heard recently that Obi is meeting with Atiku and there’s a possibility of some merger, that’s the most reasonable thing I’ve seen Obi do in the last one year. Joining the PDP enhances his chances. Becoming president is more than chance enhancement. There are lots of issues. The best thing that can happen to Obi is for him to be the presidential candidate of PDP and he picks his VP from the north.”

Responding to money laundering allegations in Dasuki-gate under the leadership of Col Sambo Dasuki as the National Security Adviser by the EFCC, he said, “the conviction was there but all the accusations were fallacious, adding that “All the charges on corruption were dropped by the judge.” The conviction entailed two years in jail or fine and he disclosed paying 14 million but explained why the judge declared that he contravened a section of the law and two of the Money Acts.

According to him, the money he received was for the purpose of running an office the same way other aides of the president were paid. He also pointed out that “the finance director who came as a principal witness for EFCC debunked all the arguments and said the money they paid me was not part of any stolen money, it was from their national budget and that they normally pay in cash to those who NSA has directed. My trial was purely political because even the judge said ‘you made an honest mistake’, so there was no intention to commit crime.”