Ayodele Fayose, the erstwhile governor of Ekiti, has announced his exit from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), barely three days after the opposition party lost in the presidential election. 

“From today, I stay off PDP. Let me put it this way, in party politics. Because there are certain facts. I am 62. I say it here from today; I step aside because I must be talking like a leader in this country,” Mr Fayose declared on a national television.

His shocking declaration came as Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the PDP lost the election to Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress. 

On Wednesday, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced Mr Tinubu as the winner of the February 25, 2023 presidential election and subsequently issued him a Certificate of Return the same day.

The electoral body said that Mr Tinubu polled 8,794,726 votes to defeat his main challenger, Mr Abubakar, of the PDP, thereby winning 12 of 36 states of Nigeria.

It added that Mr Abubakar polled 6,984,520 votes to come second, while Peter Obi of the Labour Party, came third, polling 6,101,533 votes.

Speaking further, Mr Fayose blamed Mr Abubakar and Iyorchia Ayu, the PDP National Chairman for the party’s loss in the just concluded presidential election.

He said that Mr Abubakar after he emerged as the candidate of the party refused to heed the demands of the five aggrieved governors who were asking for the resignation of Mr Ayu. 

According to Mr Fayose, the governors also demanded that Mr Abubakar committed himself to a period of one term, being a northerner aiming to rule after President Muhammadu Buhari. 

“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 years back to back for the North because Buhari is leaving and he is representing the North irrespective of the party.

“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?

“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.”

The G5 made up of five PDP governors — Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia), Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu), Samuel Ortom (Benue), Seyi Makinde (Oyo) and Nyesom Wike (Rivers), had formed an alliance after the party’s presidential primary in May 2022, to demand that Mr Ayu step down for a southern replacement as a precondition to support Mr  Abubakar in the presidential election. 

Although, Messrs Abubakar and Ayu later called the bluff of the governors and refused to succumb to their demands. 

Mr Abubakar lost in all the states of the aggrieved governors as Mr Tinubu won in Oyo, Benue, and Rivers while Mr Obi won in Enugu and Abia.