A former Governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose, has announced his resignation from the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The pronouncement by Fayose is coming some hours after his party lost the presidential election to the All Progressive Congress (APC).
This was made known on Wednesday by Fayose while appearing as a guest on Arise Television where he revealed that the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar rejected the offer of one term in office to get the G5 governors’ support.
While announcing his resignation, Fayose said, “From today, I stay off PDP.”
Atiku refused to commit to spending only 4 years
On whether what he meant was the resignation from the PDP, the former governor said,
- “Let me put it this way, in party politics. Because there are certain facts. I am 62.
- “I say it here from today, I step aside because I must be talking like a leader in this country.
- “I had issued on my Twitter handle even in the month of January or December, I warned the PDP about this problem. if not resolved will consume this party, I told them there is Danger ahead. Watch it.
- “I was invited by His Excellency Atiku Abubakar to a hotel in Lagos. I told him four things, that there were four demands they made of you. One, you are seventy-six as of last year. The G-5 said, you are already a candidate, you can’t abort a child that has been given birth to.
- “But let us go back and tell the Southerners that you will spend four years so that it would not look like it will be eight to eight years back to back for the North because Buhari is leaving and he is representing the North irrespective of the party.
- “They told his excellency to make his official announcement, not that he should hand it over to any member of the G-5. That you are going to spend four years and at that time you will be 80 years, all the people surrounding him disagree, that they can’t say such, when he becomes President he will say it, who does that?
Accuses PDP of sponsoring protests
Fayose during the interview urged the party to accept defeat, alleging that they are sponsoring protests against the outcome of the election.
Reacting to a video showing members of a civil society organisation who protested against the outcome of the election in Abuja, he said,
- “Let me first fault the people I saw here today, that are calling themselves civil society. No, they are PDP members.
- “The person that first spoke on behalf of protesters here is Yusuf from Oyo State. He is a PDP member that contested in 2019. He is a good brother of mine. The young lady too is from Oyo State. They are all PDP members.
- “These are PDP agents. These are people doing this to just show Nigerians that we are not happy. PDP has been sponsoring a lot of people to protest and giving them money. They go and carry people from somewhere.’’
For the record
- Recall that about 2 days ago, Fayose had blasted the PDP and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, over their refusal to accept the collation of results from Saturday’s presidential election by INEC.
- He said that the PDP has no moral right to cry foul or pretend to have a sense of patriotism that they don’t have.
