2023 Presidency Not Ponmo And Amala, Leave Saraki, Atiku Alone – Dino Melaye Roasts Fayose

A former Senator representing Kogi West, Dino Melaye, has berated former Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose over his recent comments about some presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Recall that Fayose had slammed some PDP presidential aspirants who had dumped the party in the past for the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The former governor who is eyeing the presidency had vowed not to step down for any northern candidate, insisting that the ruling party must zones its ticket to the South.

Fayose argued that the only right thing for the PDP to do is to zone its presidential ticket to the south, given that the ticket was zoned to the north in 2019 and southerners respected the party’s decision to allow only northern candidates emerge at the Port Harcourt convention.

“I saw the people going around for consensus. Who will step down for who? You asked me to step down? I won’t step down,” he said.

Reacting in a statement on Friday titled, ‘The Presidency is not Ponmo and Amala’, Dino Melaye called on the leadership of the PDP to caution Fayose.

He accused the former governor of trying to demarket PDP’s leading candidate for his godfather in the APC.

Dino Melaye 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.

“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.”

This article was originally published on Nigeria News