When I read the news earlier today, Friday, of the passing of former presidential media assistant Dr. Doyin Okupe, I recalled the occasion in July 1990 when he first burst onto the national political stage.
It was one rainy night at the Ladi Kwali Hall of Abuja’s Sheraton Hotel, venue of the National Republican Convention’s [NRC] first national convention. I had joined the staff of the now defunct Citizen magazine as Principal Correspondent earlier that month, and my first major assignment was to cover the national conventions of the Babangida-created, “a little to the left” Social Democratic Party [SDP] and the “a little to the right” NRC. I joined several dozen reporters to cover both conventions, held two days apart, at the same venue.
At the SDP convention, which held first, the main battle line was between the Peoples Front [PF] led by General Shehu Yar’adua and the Peoples Solidarity Party [PSP], essentially a reincarnation of the Unity Party of Nigeria [UPN] of the Second Republic. Talk at the time was that Yar’adua wanted to grab the SDP’s leadership by backing [some said, fielding] AmbassadorBabagana Kingibe in order to pave the way for his later grabbing the presidential ticket. PSP then fielded Alhaji Muhammadu Arzika, now late, apparently calculating that if the party chairmanship went to the North, the South would lay a better claim to the presidential ticket. Kingibe won the contest.
At NRC’s convention, the factions and the calculations were a bit different. Unlike in SDP, the battle lines in NRC were openly regional. The Northern bloc, whose floor leader at the convention was Alhaji Ahmadu Kurfi, later Maradin Katsina who passed away recently, was determined to push the chairmanship to the South in order to later lay claim to the presidential ticket. On the other hand, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, best known at the time as wealthy businessman, proprietor of Iwuanyanwu Nationale football club and presidential hopeful, led the Southern determination to push the chairmanship to the North, for the same reason. Fighting for the chairmanship were Chief Tom Ikimi, backed by the Northern bloc and said to have been suggested to it by the military Vice President Admiral Augustus Aikhomu, and Alhaji Ibrahim Nasir Mantu, widely believed in the convention hall to be sponsoredby Iwuanyanwu.
Dr Doyin Okupe was apparently in the Northern-bloc favoured list of candidates. In the dead of night when votes were being counted and the crowd in the hall had thinned, I managed to smuggle myself close to Alhaji Ahmadu Kurfi, who sat at the back of the hall, intently monitoring the count. His couriers were dashing to the collation desk and returning to him with the progress made, and he was nodding his head in happiness because the candidates his bloc supported, led by Ikimi, were apparently winning.
At about 2am that morning, Doyin Okupe was retuned elected as National Publicity Secretary. I had gone outside to get some fresh air after nearly 20 hours in the stuffy hall when I heard a loud cheer, preceded by much hitting of Yoruba drums and a long column of dancing supporters, wearing aso oke cloth. It was Okupe victoriously storming out of the hall. As they proceeded, they sang, “Sarkin Magana! Doyin Okupe!” Sarkin Magana in Hausa means “king of speaking.” I wondered why that large crowd of Okupe supporters, nearly all of them Yorubamen and women as far as I could determine from their dress, were chanting in Hausa. Maybe because the Northern bloc in NRC was behind his victory. May the soul of Sarkin Magana rest in peace.
