2023: Doyin Okupe withdraws from presidential race, backs Peter Obi

A former spokesman of former President Goodluck Jonathan, Dr Doyin Okupe, has withdrawn from the 2023 presidential race.

Okupe also announced that he would now support the candidacy of former Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate addressed a press conference at the NUJ Secretariat, Iwe Iroyin, Abeokuta, Ogun State, on Wednesday, saying it would be wrong for the PDP to jettison zoning.

He said he has abandoned his ambition and conceded the same to the South East in the spirit of fairness and equity, even though “I was the first to declare for the presidency in Nigeria.”

According to him, the leader of the Pan-Yoruba group, Afenifere, Ayo Adebanjo, had in a meeting told him that the next president must come from the South East, saying he had gone beyond Afenifere to pick Peter Obi, whom he considered as a right peg in a right hole.

Okupe said it was clear to him that those at the PDP helm of affairs “are trying to hoodwink those of us aspirants from the South to commit ourselves to obtain the requisite forms before coming up with the original position that ‘every zone can contest the presidency.”

This position, he declared, “is politically fraudulent, unjust and inequitable.”

As a politician, Okupe maintained that he would forge ahead with his “unrepentant call for a rotation of power to the South.”

“I turned 70 years a few days ago, and I have made a covenant with my maker that for the rest of my life, I shall uphold this spirit and principles of our forebears as manifestly displayed and represented in our collective socio-political heritage – THE AFENIFERE.