By Ishaya Ibrahim
The media office of the Obi/Datti campaign organisation has fumed at the action of the spokesman for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Dino Melaye, during the town hall organised by Arise Television.
Melaye had labelled those who protested that Ifeanyi Okowa should not represent the presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar at the debate as Peter Obi’s People. An angry Obi pointed out to Dino that among the protesters include the New Nigeria Peoples Party supporters.
A statement by Obi/Datti Media Office said the action Melaye put was unruly and an attempt to provoke Obi.
The statement reads: “The fact that the Spokesman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP Presidential Candidate, Senator Dino Melaye could in his inordinate attitude provoke the highly peaceful and hard to annoy Labour Party Presidential flag bearer, Mr Peter Obi shows clearly the level of his imprudence.
“At the Arise Television TownHall Meeting for Presidential Candidates on Sunday at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, Senator Melaye was so unruly and disproportionately large that a hardly provoked LP standard bearer had to call him out publicly to the shame of the bully spokesman.
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“Notwithstanding that his principal Atiku Abubakar who was scheduled for the program ran away and sent his Running mate, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, Senator Melaye was not ashamed of the embarrassment caused by it but was still shamelessly throwing his nuisance about to be noticed by the highly disciplined Obi.
“Instead of ruminating on the dig on him from a cross-section of Nigerians for his recalcitrant behaviour on Sunday, Melaye is claiming that the obidient family which has become the nightmare to his principal cannot win the election.
“According to him, the Obi supporters will burn out and by January 2023 it would be obvious that any vote for him is a vote for the ruling All Progressives Congress, presidential ticket holder Asiwaju Bola Ahmad Tinubu.
“We in the Obi-Datti Media office long came to the realization that attack dogs made Mr Peter Obi their principal target for relevance and retention of their job.
“If any right-thinking Nigerian especially a politician still thinks that Obi, the Labour Party Candidate is an underdog in the 2023 Presidential race, that person must be fantasizing and should be pitied.
“Even showing face at all with attendant ugly conduct at a function his Principal was missing, underscores clearly the man who probably was hired purposely for nuisance than for good.
“Obi-Datti Media Office, therefore, needed to actually make it clear to Senator Melaye and other characters of his ilk that Mr Peter Obi and Labour Party are in the race to win and win convincingly.
“All political index projections ahead of 2023 show it that Obi is actually the man to beat.
It’s perhaps this type of poor political calculations by Melaye that made him lose his senatorial seat to APC in 2019 and to a small boy in the House of Representatives in his party’s primaries in 2022.
“What Peter Obi is out to do by trying to take back Nigeria with Nigerian youths is to ensure that political jokers like Melaye do not occupy spaces reserved for good heads for the uplifting of the nation’s democracy.
“Therefore, Obi-Datti media office needed to educate Senator Melaye properly that rather than Obi’s vote gifting any other political party in Nigeria, it should be stated very clearly that Nigerians are visibly tired of the two political parties and are copiously directing their votes to the fresh air in our polity which is Mr Peter Obi.
The man who by antecedents and qualification is the man needed at this time to rescue and rebuild our beloved country.”