“While I celebrate you, I want to advise you that your time is not now. You have to wait for your time,” Mr Melaye said in a video yesterday.
Former Senator Dino Melaye has urged Labour Party (LP) candidate Peter Obi to abandon his bid for the presidency in 2023 in favour of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
Mr Melaye, who represented Kogi West Senatorial District in the National Assembly, advised Mr Obi to “wait for his time” in a video posted on his Facebook page on Friday.
“I celebrate you (Obi) and I celebrate your movement for a new Nigeria. While I celebrate you, I want to advise you that your time is not now. You have to wait for your time.
“By the grace of God he has the potential of being the president in the nearest future,” Mr Melaye, a member of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said. “But for today, let us forget the social media drama and Diaspora euphoria.”Mr Melaye said the former Anambra governor’s campaign focused on lowering the cost of governance, but that Nigeria’s problems went beyond rhetoric.
“I have listened to your postulations, arguments, deliveries, and campaigns and I can say 90 per cent of your campaigns are dwelling on reducing the cost of governance.“
The fact is that we need a unifier and a Nigerian who can tackle the issue of insecurity and has intelligence from every security aspect of our national life. We need a Nigerian who can gather intelligence from Cameroon, Mali, Chad, Benin Republic, and other countries.”
The video from Mr Melaye, a staunch admirer of Mr Atiku, has sparked outrage among followers of Mr Obi, who regard it as an assault on their candidate. A cross-section of young Nigerians are dissatisfied with the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party’s selections of Bola Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar as presidential candidates, respectively, and are organizing a statewide campaign for Mr Obi as a better option.
