By Adeleye Kunle
The spokesman of the Peoples Democratic Party presidential campaign, Dino Melaye on Saturday condemned the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, over his comment against the party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.
Keyamo in an interview on Channels TV had claimed that Atiku does not have anything to offer Nigerians as President.
The minister further stated that the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, is better than Atiku in capacity and experience.
Melaye in his reaction to Keyamo’s statement described the minister as redundant, and inactive in his office under president Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
The former lawmaker representing Kogi West senatorial district said Keyamo has not only attacked Atiku but the office of the vice president which he once occupied.
He claimed that the Minister was talking under the influence of drugs when he attacked Atiku.
The former legislator said in a video published on his Twitter account, “Ask Nigerians today, what portfolio is Keyamo holding? Many will tell you that they don’t even know the ministry he is working in because he is redundant, inactive, and not visible.
“Because he is not known as Minister, he is mistaking his officer as a Minister of State for the office of the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. No Nigerian who is educated, and intellectually okay will abuse the office of the Vice President of Nigeria.
“What Keyamo attacked is not Atiku Abubakar but the office of the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the number two official in this country.
“Because he has monetized his conscience, that is why he will not understand that the office of the Nigerian VP has some ministries, and agencies under its direct supervision and oversight.
“That is why he will not know that in the absence of the president, the vice president is the acting president with executive power anytime the president is out of the country. So what he has done is that he has abused the office of the Nigerian VP even as a lawyer who should understand the constitutionality of that office.
“Anyone who has been a VP is fit to be a president. Can Keyamo also say that Atiku has not succeeded internationally as a businessman?
“Just because you are acting under ‘sekpe’ or the influence of marijuana, you just smoke your ganja and you think you can just open your mouth and talk? Because you are defending someone who takes drugs more than food today?
“You are talking rubbish and I am going to challenge you to a debate. Nigerians know who you are, they know that you are a commercialized character, a failed politician.
“I challenge you to a debate and when we sit down, I will break you into pieces”
