FORMER presidential spokesperson and renowned physician, Doyin Okupe, is dead. He was 72.
Born on March 22, 1952, in Iperu, Ogun State, Okupe’s career spanned several decades, during which he held significant political positions.
ARISE News confirmed the news of his death on Friday, March 7. The television channel noted that he died from remission of cancer in Lagos overnight.
Okupe began his political journey during the Second Nigerian Republic as a House of Representatives candidate for the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in the 1983 parliamentary elections.
In the aborted Third Republic, he served as the National Publicity Secretary for the National Republican Convention (NRC).
Throughout his career, Okupe was associated with various political parties, including the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party.
In 2002, he was a governorship aspirant in Ogun State under the PDP and later served as a senior special assistant on Media and Public Affairs to former President Olusegun Obasanjo and former President Goodluck Jonathan.
In July 2017, he announced his defection from PDP to join the Accord Party. However, after accepting the role of chairman of the Campaign Media Council for Bukola Saraki during the PDP’s 2019 presidential primaries, he was expelled from the Accord Party in September 2018.
During the 2023 general elections, Okupe served as the director-general of the Peter Obi Campaign Organisation.
In this capacity, he was initially nominated as the vice-presidential candidate (placeholder) for the Labour Party before stepping down to allow for the selection of Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed as the substantive running mate.
However, after the 2023 general election, he exited the Labour Party and became a vocal proponent of President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
Mustapha Usman is an investigative journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: musman@icirnigeria.com. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M