Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has been told that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) presidential ticket will no longer be available to be wasted by serial betrayals of the party, who are obviously suffering the consequences of their past sins against the party and its members.
Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Nyesom Wike’s Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, who insisted that Atiku should perish the thought of contesting the 2027 presidential election as a candidate of the PDP, said, “His Excellency, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and those urging him on for their personal benefits should let the PDP breathe.”
Wike had said, during a live media parley in his office in Abuja on Wednesday, that there will be no chance for Atiku, who was the 2023 presidential candidate of the PDP, to secure the party’s ticket in 2027.
Reacting through his media aide, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku alluded to his defeat of Wike to pick the 2023 PDP presidential ticket as well as the former Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal, to emerge as the candidate in 2019.
However, in a statement on Thursday, Olayinka, who described Atiku’s celebration of his narrow and fraudulent defeat of Wike in the 2022 PDP primary as funny and childish, said, “It is like Arsenal fans jumping to the rooftop to celebrate the club’s narrow defeat of the Super Falcons.”
He said, “That Atiku is venerating himself for contesting the PDP ticket with Wike and Tambuwal, people who were just a little above 25 as of 1993, when he contested the Social Democratic Party’s (SDP) presidential primary and came in third, is the more reason he needs to go home and rest and stop acting like the proverbial cock that failed to realise that it is now elderly.”
Describing Atiku as someone not destined to be president of Nigeria, Olayinka said, “It is obvious that he (Atiku) is paying the price of betraying the PDP in 2003, 2007, and 2014. If not, the same presidency he has contested twice and lost could have been his to just pick if he had avoided being inordinately ambitious while he was Vice President.
“It was this desperation that made him contest for president as the candidate of Action Congress in 2007, while still serving as Vice President, elected under the platform of the PDP. A serving vice president joins others to form another party and contests as a candidate of the new party against his own party. That’s Alhaji Atiku Abubakar!
“Most importantly, Atiku’s conscience will continue to prick him on his roles in Lagos in 2023, and I am sure that even his apology to PDP members in 2018 can never remove from his body that garment of betrayal.
“Therefore, it is again being sounded to his ears and those of the people lying to him that he is the only one who can win the presidency for the PDP and that the ticket of the party will not be for someone like him, who will lose the election and run to Dubai, only to come back two years to another election.”
ALSO READ THESE TOP STORIES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
Get real-time news updates from Tribune Online! Follow us on WhatsApp for breaking news, exclusive stories and interviews, and much more.
Join our WhatsApp Channel now