Dino Melaye Unruly

The Media Office of Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates of the Labour Party, Peter Obi and Yusuf Datti -Baba-Ahmad, respectively, has reacted to the incident which happened between Obi and Senator Dino Melaye, during the Presidential Townhall meeting organised by Arise TV, on  Sunday in Abuja.

Obi had rebuked Senator Melaye, the Spokesperson of the Presidential Campaign Council of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who he said kept distracting him by interjecting with cheeky remarks against him.

But Melaye, in a video post denied making any such remarks, and said Obi’s rebuke of him was unprovoked.

However, the Obi-Datti Media Office, in a statement strongly condemned the Senator and accused him of  unruly behaviour.

Melaye’s principal, Atiku Abubakar, was represented at the Townhall, to the anger of the audience, by his running mate, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa, Governor, Delta State.

Following is the full statement from the Obi-Datti Media office.

The Dino Malady and the fantasy of 2023.

“The fact that the Spokesman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP Presidential Candidate, Senator Dino Melaye could in his inordinate attitude provoke the highly peaceful and hard to annoy Labour Party Presidential flag bearer, Mr. Peter Obi shows clearly the level of his imprudence.

“At the Arise Television TownHall Meeting for Presidential Candidates on Sunday at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja,  Senator Melaye was so unruly and disproportionately large that a hardly provoked LP standard bearer had to call him out publicly to the shame of the bully spokesman.

“Notwithstanding that his principal Atiku Abubakar who was scheduled for the program ran away and sent his Running mate, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, Senator Melaye was not ashamed  of the embarrassment caused by it but was still shamelessly throwing his nuisance about to be noticed by the highly disciplined Obi.

“Instead of ruminating on the dig on him from a cross section of Nigerians for his recalcitrant behavior on Sunday, Melaye is claiming that the obidient family which has become the nightmare to his principal cannot win election.

“According to him, the Obi supporters will burn out and by January 2023 it would be obvious that any vote for him is a vote for the ruling All Progressives Congress, presidential ticket holder Asiwaju Bola Ahmad Tinubu.

“We in the Obi-Datti Media office long came to the realization that attack dogs made Mr. Peter Obi their principal target for relevance and retention of their job.

“If any right thinking Nigerian especially a politician still thinks that Obi, the Labour Party Candidate is an underdog in the 2023 Presidential race, that person must be fantasizing and should be pitied.

“Even showing face at all with an attendant ugly conduct  at a  function his Principal was missing, underscores clearly the man who probably was hired purposely for nuisance than for good.

“Obi-Datti Media Office therefore needed to actually make it clear to Senator Melaye and other characters of his ilk that Mr. Peter Obi and Labour Party are in the race to win and win convincingly .

“All political index projections ahead of 2023 show it that Obi is actually the man to beat.

It’s perhaps this type of poor political calculations by Melaye that made him lose his senatorial seat  to APC in 2019 and to a small boy in the House of Representatives  in his party’s primaries in 2022.

“What Peter Obi is out to do by trying to take back Nigeria with Nigerian youths is to ensure that political jokers like Melaye do not occupy spaces reserved for good heads for the uplifting of the nation’s democracy.

“Therefore, Obi-Datti media office needed to educate  Senator Melaye properly that rather than Obi’s vote gifting any other political party in Nigeria, it should be stated very clearly that  Nigerians are visibly tired of the two political parties and are copiously directing their votes to the fresh air in our polity which is Mr  Peter Obi.

The man who by antecedents and qualification is the man needed at this time to rescue and rebuild our beloved country.”