A former Senator, Dino Melaye, has called on the national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party to caution ex-governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State against de-marketing its presidential contenders for the 2023 general elections, describing him as “a presidential gambler”.

He was reacting to the comments by Fayose against former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and ex-Senate President, Bukola Saraki, over the collection of the presidential nomination forms.

Melaye said this in a statement titled, ‘The Presidency is not Ponmo and Amala’, on Friday.

According to him, Fayose’s comment is a strategy to allegedly shore up the chances of his political godfather in the All Progressives Congress.

He said, “Inebriated by several wraps of Amala in Abuja, former Governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose, in his characteristic exuberance, directed indecent and indecorous attacks at two serious contenders for the presidential ticket of the PDP, His Excellency Atiku Abubakar and His Excellency Bukola Saraki.

“Incidentally, the mauling of Amala gained more publicity over the collection of the presidential nomination form, in a pretentious exhibition of dining with the masses. This frugal populism has since been deflated by allegations of charges for the ferreting of billions of Naira from public coffers in Ekiti State. Is Amala and Abula so expensive?

“The issue before Nigerians now is not who can eat more, but who can produce food. That is why the attempt to tar the outstanding achievements of Atiku Abubakar as former Vice President and Bukola Saraki as former Senate President by Fayose would be discounted as the belching perfidy of a presidential gambler.

“It is clear from the verbal missiles deployed by Fayose that he was simply de-marketing frontline aspirants in PDP as a counter-intuitive strategy to shore up the chances of his political godfather in APC.

“It is amazing that Fayose who could not manage and retain a PDP state now aspires to lead a behemoth structure like Nigeria. Today, Ekiti is stripped of all vestiges of PDP; no PDP Senator, no PDP House of Representatives member, no House of Assembly member, no Local Government Chairman, and not even a Councillor. He left Ekiti State worse than he met it. How could he fail in the state and expect promotion to the national?

“The contest for the ticket of PDP and the Presidency of Nigeria is a serious engagement. Those who aspire to the position must elevate themselves above pedestrian conduct and address real issues, rather than dwelling on inconsequential inanities.

“The national leadership of our great party should call Fayose to order, by curtailing his unproductive verbiage against serious contenders. Having failed to upgrade from local political space to the national stage, Fayose may indeed be assisted to undertake a week-long orientation session on the ethics and codes of peer relations on a presidential canvass.

“Nigeria is in dire straits at the moment. It is beyond the call of jesters in the corridors of elevated governance.”