Doyin Okupe, the former Senior Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan, has said that it is very insensitive, the way some Nigerians are making unsavoury comments about President Muhammadu Buhari’s illness.
In a statement on Friday, Okupe said though he is not a supporter of Buhari, it is embarrassing how some Nigerians “outrightly deride him, wish him dead, as if they themselves are not human.”
“Sickness and ill-health many times are not things you can blame individuals for, and certainly not deride them about. Both young and old do fall ill, and death certainly is not exclusively restricted to the old, or young, or rich, poor, or powerful,” the ex-Presidential Aide said.
He also noted that the political implication of President Buhari’s health, “is neither simple, nor straight forward, in a country as complex and convoluted politically as Nigeria.”
He noted that political leaders must bear in their minds, that since the return of democratic rule in 1999, in the last 18 years, the Southern part of the country has occupied the position of President for approximately 14 years, while the North has had only four years.
“This calls for sensitive and careful navigation and negotiation, to uphold equity, justice, and fairness, if our country must maintain political stability, without which our nation can hardly make progress”, Okupe said.
Okupe further stated that, the North-West should produce the President in 2019.
He said: “this type of political concession is not all together new to our politics. In 1998, because of the perceived injustice to the people of the South-West, the political class resolved through an unprecedented concessionary arrangement, to allow only the South-West to present Presidential candidates, so that head and tail the South-West would produce the President.
“It was not constitutional, but it was also not against any law. It was politically right and expedient, and it brought the country together.
“We must desist from wrongfully using death and unforeseen happenstance to cheat ourselves politically or administratively. Only honesty, sincerity of purpose, genuine love for one another, fairness and equity, can make us get to the Promised Land together.”
