THE Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr Doyin Okupe, has said the people of the South West will vote massively for President Goodluck Jonathan on Saturday.

This, he said, was in view of the antecedent of the Yoruba race as defenders of truth, equity and justice in Nigeria.

In a lecture entitled: The Yorubas: Our Politics Yesterday and Today,” deli

vered at the Lagos Country Club, Ikeja, on Wednesday, Okupe recalled that historically, the Yorubas had acted as conscience of the Nigerian nation, who ensured that no ethnic group was subjugated or marginalised in the political process.

The presidential aide said, having benefitted from a national concession which enabled the race to enjoy two terms in office as president during Chief Olusegun Obasanjo-led administration, the Yoruba people needed to rise in defence of the minority Ijaw nation, as represented by President Jonathan, whom he said had justified the first mandate given him by being fair to all parts of Nigeria in his programmes and policies.

While eulogising the political leadership of the sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, in the old Western Region, Okupe said the sage and the entire Yoruba political class held dearly to the principles of a restructured federation, fiscal autonomy, regionalism and balanced economic development, which the national conference adopted and which President Jonathan was committed to implementing in his second term in office.

“It is an irony that the platform for seeking these reforms which the Yorubas had agitated for in decades was only recently provided by a man from the minority ethnic group who emerged Nigerian president by providence in 2011.

“That platform is the national conference which, among others, has come up with far-reaching recommendations which if and when implemented, will solve quite a number of our social, political and economic distortions and restore Nigeria to the path of sustainable growth and stability.

“These resolutions will have salutary effect on all ethnic groups in Nigeria, who will have the opportunity of self-determination and development of their natural endowments,” he said.

While describing the alliance that led to the formation of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as “a personal agenda of a few clothed in a pseudo-nationalist attire to attain power by all means, including falsehood, forgery, deception driven by wealth acquired through unprecedented greed, avarice and grand larceny,” Okupe said all Nigerians of good conscience needed to rise up and demand that politics be played as a means to a noble end and that no section of the country must be foist with a second class mentality.

While answering questions on the achievements of the president in office, Okupe said the revamping of Nigeria’s moribund transportation system in road, rail and air, the construction of new power plants and completion of 13 major dams across the country, as well as the revolution in the agricultural sector were unprecedented in the nation’s history.

He added that President Jonathan-led administration managed the Nigerian economy creditably, a reason, he said, most of the manufacturing businesses in the automotive, agro-allied, cement and other sectors, which were on a low ebb before 2011, had all increased production by between 18 and 50 per cent in the last four years.