PDP crisis: ‘From today, I stay off PDP,’ Fayose quits partisan politics

364

Former Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Fayose has resigned from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and partisan politics.

Fayose made the announcement during an interview with ARISE TV on Wednesday.

Announcing his resignation, Fayose said, “From today, I stay off PDP. 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 76 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 disagreed; that they can’t say such, ‘when he becomes President he will say it’. Who does that?”

Meanwhile, Fayose’s resignation comes few days after his party, the PDP, lost the presidential election to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.

According to Fayose, the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar rejected the offer of one term in office to get the G5 governors’ support.

Atiku lost the G5 governors’ states to APC’s Tinubu, who won three and Labour Party candidate, Obi won two states.

Speaking on his resignation, he said, “Let me put it this way. In party politics; because there are certain facts. I am 62.”

Fayose accused the National Chairman of the party, Iyiorcha Ayu, of the failure of the party at the poll.

He urged the party to accept defeat, alleging that they are sponsoring protests against the outcome of the election.

“This Ayu was the one who led Atiku to the gutters. They took him to the gutters. You see when a man cannot come out; at 80 what does he want to do after?”

Speaking on the governorship election in Lagos State, he said, “The PDP candidate in Lagos to me, they are people doing theatre. Lagos business is a serious business.

“There are lots of challenges in Lagos. So I enjoin everybody in Lagos to return Sanwo-Olu.”