Go And Rest, Allow Young Nigerians To Lead PDP, Olayinka Tells Atiku

Lere Olayinka, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and former aide to ex-Ekiti Governor, Ayodele Fayose, has asked the party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to go and rest, stressing that it is time for younger Nigerians to lead the party.

Olayinka, who was the PDP House of Representatives candidate for Ekiti Central Federal Constituency II in the 2023 National Assembly election, said the PDP should blame itself for losing the presidential election.

He said this while speaking on a Television Continental (TVC) program on Thursday and Silverbird Television programme, NewsHub on Friday morning, on the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal judgment, which affirmed the election of President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Olayinka said that he did not expect anything different from the tribunal, saying that “it is a waste of time going to court to challenge an election the PDP should have won so easily”.

“How do you prove malpractices in an election held in over 176,000 polling units when it is mandatory that you must call witnesses in all polling units where you alleged irregularities? For instance, if you claimed irregularities in 10,000 polling units, how do you bring 10,000 party agents to the court to give evidence?” he asked.

Speaking further, Olayinka said, “Therefore, it is better to do all that you must do within the ambit of the law to win instead of waiting to lose and go to the Tribunal.”

He pointed out that opposition parties, especially the PDP had all the chance to win the election, but bungled the opportunity, adding that “disjointed opposition has never been victorious against any ruling party”.

He continued, “When you choose to sacrifice five governors for a single National Chairman, you should know that the result will be a failure.

“And after planning to fail, you now want the court to help you remedy your own failure? Who does that?

“Look at the Presidential Election results and tell me how Tinubu’s APC would have won if the PDP had played its game well.

“You chose a single National Chairman over and above Governors Nyesom Wike, Seyi Makinde, Samuel Ortom, Okezie Ikpeazu and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi. You lost former Governors like Ayo Fayose in Ekiti, Jonah Jang in Plateau, Ibrahim Shema in Katsina, as well as several sitting National Assembly members.

“You chose to suspend and expel National Assembly candidates of the party. You were more interested in what you thought was taking State Party structures from major stakeholders of the party by dissolving State Party Excos. And some people were busy calling you President-in-waiting?

So where are those praise singers now? Where are those who said that the likes of Wike, Fayose and others who stood by the PDP after the 2015 electoral loss were nobody? Were they even at the Tribunal on Wednesday? So painful!

“Most importantly, in 2015, it took the coming together of four opposition parties to defeat PDP.

“However, in 2023, the opposition was divided into three – PDP, Labour Party (LP) and New Nigerian People’s Party (NNPP).

In the presidential election, opposition PDP, LP and NNPP had a total of 14,582,740 while APC had 8,794,726 votes.

“The difference between APC votes and those of the opposition parties was 5,788,014, meaning that if the opposition parties had presented a common front, the election would have been won so easily.

“Therefore, rather than dissipate energies and resources, going from one court to the other in search of an electoral victory that the opposition threw away by itself, what should be happening is a rebuild towards 2027, with younger Nigerians taking the lead.”