Tribe is not a determinant of winning the 2023 elections , Director General of Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council, Akin Osuntokun.
Osuntokun made these remarks when confronted as a Yoruba man from the south west dominated by the All Progressives Congress, why he chose to align with the Labour Party (LP).
“We are taking Nigeria away from the culture of sentiments. We are not going to help in perpetuating those primordial sentiments,” he said, adding that he took his new appointment without religious or ethnic sentiments.
He denied lobbying for his new job.
He said, being a Yoruba man, Igbo or Fulani should not be a determinant to winning the election this time, adding that “otherwise, we will be holding ourselves responsible for all things that have gone wrong in this country. The question should be about competence and antecedents.”
Osuntokun said the exit of his predecessor would exert pressure on everyone in the party, but expressed confidence that he was equal to the task of taking pressure.
“Of course, so will the other DGs of other campaigns. Anybody in the campaign hierarchy will necessarily be under pressure until after the election. It is not an armchair position.
“Naturally, I feel good about it. I look forward to the new role. It didn’t come to me as a shock. I didn’t lobby for it.
“As the zonal coordinator of the South West and in the hierarchy of the campaign organisation, I am next to the DG of the South West. If we look at it from that perspective, it didn’t come to me as a surprise. That is the simple explanation for that”, he said.
The former managing director of the News Agency of Nigeria said that he had a considerable wealth of experience in terms of participating in presidential elections in Nigeria.
“It is not new terrain. I led the 2003 and 2007 presidential elections as a political adviser,” he said.
The former aide to President Olusegun Obasanjo was unveiled as the new helmsman of Obi’s campaign in Abuja on Tuesday.
He replaced the former DG, Doyin Okupe, who announced his resignation in a letter last Tuesday following a Federal High Court ruling in Abuja that convicted him of violating the money laundering Act.
