…dismisses Peter Obi’s popularity on social media as an ‘euphoria’
The spokesperson of the Atiku Campaign Organisation, Senator Dino Melaye says Nigerian youths on Friday endorsed Alhaji Atiku Abubakar for president.
Abubakar is the presidential flag bearer of the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party. He picked Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State as his running mate.
Speaking in an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today yesterday, Melaye, who believes his principal is the best for the presidential seat next year, said the representatives of Nigerian youths from the 36 states of the federation, including the Federal Capital Territory endorsed “Atiku Abubakar as the candidate of the Nigerian youths.”
According to him, the endorsement was at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua’s Center in Abuja where the youths had an interaction with Abubakar in conmeration of this year’s International Youths Day.
“Does Atiku Abubakar resonate with the youths of today, not of 2019? Do they reckon with him as the person that they can relate with?,” the show’s host, Seun Okinbaloye, had asked.
In response, Melaye said: “From statistics and research work done, Atiku Abubakar is loved by the youths of this country.
“I told you today there was a programme. Today is International Youths Day and the youths of this country all converged in a hall and had an interactive session with Atiku Abubakar.
“After that programme, youths from the 36 states including Abuja also met today at the Shehu Yar’Adua’s Center and I was there in that programme where they endorsed Atiku Abubakar as the candidate of the Nigerian youths.
“Representatives of all the 36 states, they were all there in the programme—this is something you can verify, this is something you can find out—at Shehu Musa Yar’Adua’s Center today because they have come to see that this is the only man that can give us hope, this is the only man that can take us off the cluster of this NGO called APC.
“They have come to see that we cannot have a decisive president in Bola Ahmed Tinubu, we cannot have a national president in (Peter) Obi, but we can have a father figure, a father of the nation in Atiku Abubakar and he will bring all warring factions together like they did in 1998/1999 by bringing a government of national unity.
“And you will see that the tension in the country will come down because all these agitations is as a result of injustice and Atiku will correct every injustice in this country.”
Earlier in the interview, the former lawmaker dismissed the social media frenzy generated by Peter Obi, saying the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate does not stand a chance of winning next year’s poll.
He maintained that social media popularity does not equate to voting power, adding that Obi, whom he described as a “fantastic Nigerian”, does not have what it takes to unify the country.
“What you have is euphoria; a created euphoria,” the outspoken Melaye said during the show. “Let me even tell you, Peter Obi is a fantastic Nigerian. I have tremendous respect for him and I have said it before but this is not his time. He does not have what it takes now to unify the country.”
He further cited the recent performance of the LP in the Osun State governorship election as an indication that social media is different from reality on the ground.
“Despite Peter Obi visiting Osun to campaign for his party’s governorship candidate, the performance of the Labour Party was 2,700 votes,” Melaye argued, stressing that people should not be carried away by the “euphoria”.
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