Melaye urged PDP leadership to caution the two-time governor against de-marketing the party’s most credible presidential contenders
By Kehinde Okeowo
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain and former Senator, Dino Melaye, has accused the former governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose of working for the ruling party, All Progressives Congress (APC) ahead of the 2023 general elections.
He also called on the national leadership of the opposition party, PDP to warn the two-time governor against de-marketing the party’s most credible presidential contenders.
Melaye was responding to the comments credited to Fayose after two PDP presidential hopefuls, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and ex-Senate President, Bukola Saraki, collected their presidential nomination forms.
In the interview, Fayose criticised both PDP chieftains and accused them of failing to win the 2019 election for the main opposition party in their states.
“With due respect to the former Vice President of Nigeria, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, what was PDP’s performance in the presidential election in 2019? We only won with 20,000 votes even in Adamawa in his home state. This tells us something fundamental.
“Coming to the former immediate past Senate President, Bukola Saraki, how did PDP perform in the last election in Kwara? We lost. What does that tell us? And in Sokoto, how did we perform?” Fayose said.
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Melaye, while reacting to the allegations via a statement titled, ‘The Presidency is not Ponmo and Amala’, on Friday chastised Fayose and described him as “a presidential gambler”.
According to him, Fayose’s comment is a strategy to allegedly shore up the chances of his political godfather in the ruling party, telling the PDP presidential aspirant that the presidency is not a child’s play.
He said, “Inebriated by several wraps of Amala in Abuja, former Governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose, in his characteristic exuberance, directed indecent and indecorous attacks at two serious contenders for the presidential ticket of the PDP, His Excellency Atiku Abubakar, and His Excellency Bukola Saraki.
“Incidentally, the mauling of Amala gained more publicity over the collection of the presidential nomination form, in a pretentious exhibition of dining with the masses. This frugal populism has since been deflated by allegations of charges for the ferreting of billions of Naira from public coffers in Ekiti State. Is Amala and Abula so expensive?
“The issue before Nigerians now is not who can eat more, but who can produce food. That is why the attempt to tar the outstanding achievements of Atiku Abubakar as former Vice President and Bukola Saraki as former Senate President by Fayose would be discounted as the belching perfidy of a presidential gambler.
“It is clear from the verbal missiles deployed by Fayose that he was simply de-marketing frontline aspirants in PDP as a counter-intuitive strategy to shore up the chances of his political godfather in APC.”
The former senator also chastised the ex-governor for his inability to retain his state for PDP after his tenure and wondered how such a person could question more credible presidential candidates.
“It is amazing that Fayose who could not manage and retain a PDP state now aspires to lead a behemoth structure like Nigeria. Today, Ekiti is stripped of all vestiges of PDP; no PDP Senator, no PDP House of Representatives member, no House of Assembly member, no Local Government Chairman, and not even a Councillor. He left Ekiti State worse than he met it. How could he fail in the state and expect promotion to the national?
“The contest for the ticket of PDP and the Presidency of Nigeria is a serious engagement. Those who aspire to the position must elevate themselves above pedestrian conduct and address real issues, rather than dwelling on inconsequential inanities.
“The national leadership of our great party should call Fayose to order, by curtailing his unproductive verbiage against serious contenders. Having failed to upgrade from local political space to the national stage, Fayose may indeed be assisted to undertake a week-long orientation session on the ethics and codes of peer relations on a presidential canvass.
“Nigeria is in dire straits at the moment. It is beyond the call of jesters in the corridors of elevated governance.” Melaye added.
