2023: Presidency is not Ponmo and Amala – Dino Melaye blasts Fayose

The former Kogi Senator, Dino Melaye has blasted the former Ekiti State governor, Ayodele Fayose for attacking two contenders; Atiku Abubakar and Bukola Saraki, for the Presidential ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP).

Recall that Fayose berated the former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and former Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, for seeking the PDP sole ticket for the 2023 election.

According to the former governor, had it been that Atiku and Saraki stayed in the PDP in 2015 and supported former President, Goodluck Jonathan despite whatever flaws he had, the APC would not have won the presidential election.

He pointed out that Saraki and Atiku returned to the PDP simply because they did not succeed in the APC, wondering if they would have come back to the PDP if they had become Presidents while in the APC.

Appearing on Channels Television’s Politics Today, on Wednesday, the former governor, said, “Let me take for example our respectable leader, His Excellency Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, he won in Adamawa with less than 20,000 votes [in 2019].”

 “Go to Sokoto, what’s the voting difference? Let us go to Bukola Saraki in Kwara, we actually lost there. Let us sit back and look at figures.

“This amalgamation of people trying to…at the end of the day it backfired. Jonathan, despite his flaws, we had supported him and some of our leaders didn’t go to APC …if some of them had become Presidents in Abuja would they come back? Will Atiku come back? Would Bukola Saraki have come back?

“When the journey was rough and bad, they ran back. Today, because our party is a party that tries to bring people together, we must not forget history.

“Today, I’m glad they are challenging people jumping from one party to the other, those are the ideologies that are missing,” Fayose added.

But the former lawmaker, Dino Melaye, who was one of the leaders dumped the PDP in 2015 and back to the party after Goodluck Jonathan lost the election has described Fayose as de-marketing frontline aspirants in PDP.

Melaye said Nigerians are not who can eat Amala and Ponmo but who can produce food on the table for the people.

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Newsflash Nigeria had earlier reported that Fayose was sighted at an Amala joint in Abuja after purchasing his expression of interest and nomination form under the PDP.

The former governor’s act has since generated several reactions which the most recent is coming from Melaye who tackled Fayose in a statement he signed on Thursday and titled “THE PRESIDENCY IS NOT PONMO AND AMALA.”

The lawmaker 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 People’s Democratic Party, HE Atiku Abubakar and HE 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 counterintuitive 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”, Melaye stated.

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