What Doyin Okupe Asked THE WHISTLER To Tell Nigerians After His Death
In what appeared to be an intriguing premonition of his own demise, former presidential aide, Dr Doyin Okupe revealed to THE WHISTLER during what may have been his last media interview that his end was near!
Okupe died on Friday at 72.
During the exclusive interview which went viral a few months ago, Okupe seemed aware his time was coming to end. Okupe had paused briefly during the interview and said, “I’m even tired discussing Nigeria’s issues. I’m coming to an end. I have had my time, I have paid my dues.”
When THE WHISTLER asked what informed such a scary premonition of death, he said, “Mark, you won’t understand. I have stayed away from the spotlight based on personal recollection and reflection.
“But I have served Nigeria very well to the best of my capacity. Yes, I have served this country. I have paid my dues and I think it’s time up!
“I’m not perfect; and I have seen a lot, Mark, that all these young ones shouting up and down on social media may never see.”
Okupe was first diagnosed with prostate cancer 16 years ago and later developed sarcoma in his right shoulder.
In 2024, Okupe revealed his battle with cancer which he said led to weight loss.
“It’s part in part, the first problem was cancer I had and the chemotherapy makes you lose appetite, you have nausea, and even as you sustain for several months, you lose weight,” Okupe told Channels TV in 2024.
He further revealed, “When I started chemotherapy, I was 127kg, and then I came down to 97kg… the chemotherapy ended and I went back to 103kg.”
Okupe, who previously served as the Director-General of Peter Obi’s Presidential Campaign for the 2023 election, emphasised in the interview with THE WHISTLER that even in death he would have no regret in the way he served Nigeria pointing out that Nigeria is “a difficult place to function.”
He said “the point is we inherited a system that we haven’t worked so hard to change. Both external and internal challenges are pulling it down heavily.”
Okupe during the interview occasionally paused, looked down and stayed quiet for a while, before coming back to say, “where did we stop? Mark, I want this interview to be my biggest interview… and you see…touching the key things concerning my brother, the president.”
True to him, he defended the president and often referred to him as “Bola” or “the president” interchangeably.
He was optimistic about the Tinubu administration, saying “the president would do well and leave a legacy but would someone like me witness that? Although it would take two years for the reform to bear fruits, I may not be here to witness it but Mark, you, by God’s grace, would witness it.
“And when you do, talk about it and tell people I said it. Remind them of this interview.”
The over two hours interview which almost didn’t hold due to an accident he had while coming to the venue of the interview. The interview actually went viral and became his biggest interview before his death.
The interview was dedicated to the clamour for power to return to the North just after one year of President Tinubu’s government.
Okupe stoutly defended the president, warning the south would no longer tolerate Northern dominance, and that the years when the North claimed population superiority and homogeneity were gone. “it’s gone!” Okupe declared.
The physician turned politician, who served as Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to former President Olusegun Obasanjo and later Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs to President Goodluck Jonathan argued that power rotation must not be jettisoned in the manner being canvassed by the North.
He said, “After a Northerner had been there for eight years, there is an existing understanding in the polity of this country among the political elites that the presidency would rotate between the North — not only between the zones but between the North and the South.
“So, if the presidency is coming to the South, there are three zones in the South—South-West, South-South and South-East.
It was only the South-East that had not had a shot at it,” Okupe told THE WHISTLER in the interview.
He stated that, “The last time we had anybody close to him was Awolowo (Obafemi). Awolowo was a very serious-minded politician, but who had ideas of public policies that would benefit the masses. That is what Bola Tinubu is today.
“Bola, you know, in the villa, we have a reformer, a president who is a reformer.
“I’ve heard some people saying that Bola Tinubu came to the office without a plan, he has no clue, that is balderdash, that is total nonsense.
“I have worked with two past presidents. I have studied other presidents closely from a very close point. I don’t know any Nigerian president from 1960 to date who has come more armed, better prepared for governance than this gentleman.
“Unfortunately for him, he has come into government at a very terrible and awful time. And when I met him, I told him, ‘are you out of your mind?’How would you want to succeed a Buhari (Muhammadu) administration, eight years of total abandonment, decadence and retrogression?”
Read the full interview here.
What Doyin Okupe Asked THE WHISTLER To Tell Nigerians After His Death is first published on The Whistler Newspaper
