Okupe downgrades Sheriff, mocks PDP over chairmanship appointment

Doyin Okupe, the ex-spokesman for former President Goodluck Jonathan has described the appointment of Ali Modu Sheriff, PDP’s new national chairman, as the dumbest thing the party has ever done.

“The capability of our party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and its leadership to make grave errors of judgement is legendary,” Okupe said Wednesday on his Facebook page.  “What is intriguing is that even out of power that tendency seems unabating.”

Although he called the chairman some fine names, Okupe insisted Sheriff is a wrong candidate coming in at a wrong time.

Okupe is worried about the moral baggage Sheriff, whom he says is an astute politician and ready moneybag, brings to the party. The chairman was linked to Boko Haram’s finance in 2010 when he was governor.

“For a morosed and severely prostrate political party, thanks to the overwhelming and effective propaganda machinery of the (opposition) party in power, this [Sheriff’s appointment] may yet be the mortal wound that may cause the eventual heamorrage of its long perplexed followership.”

He insisted that he won’t bail out of the party despite its imminent wreck, and he will stay back and continue to beat it to shape.

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“But if it is the divine will of God that our present masters must kill PDP, then by the Grace of God, we shall yet tarry at the graveside to bid it farewell.”
According to Okupe, the leadership of the party has not fared well so far because of its many ills, including impunity, presumptive reasoning, highly stratified and restrictive consultative processes, absolute lack of inclusiveness, mercantilism, and group conceit.

Sheriff, a former governor of Borno left the APC in a huff shortly after its victory in the last presidential election.

But his nomination as PDP chair began when the PDP, shopping for a strong personality to lead the party, pushed forward Sheriff and Nuhu Ribadu, also a carpetbagger from the APC.

Ribadu, reports said, declined the offer because the party is in bad shape currently, thus paving the way for Sheriff to coast home to victory, especially with the backing of the PDP Governors Forum and the Gov. Mimiko-led committee.