by Azeez Adeniyi

Former Senior Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan, Dr Doyin Okupe, has said those making negative comments about President Muhammadu Buhari’s illness are insensitive.

In a statement on Friday, Okupe said though he’s not a supporter of Buhari, it’s 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 said Nigerians must remember that the southern part of the country has occupied the position of President for approximately 14 years while the North has had only four years since democratic rule.

“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 said the northwest 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 southwest, the political class resolved through an unprecedented concessionary arrangement to allow only the southwest to present presidential candidates so that head and tail the southwest 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 and peacefully.”