I wish Buhari had congratulated me at 57, says Fayose

• ‘Gov may drop presidential ambition for my chairmanship position’
Governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose, who turned 57 years yesterday said that he wished President Muhammadu Buhari had called to congratulate him.

Fayose, who stated this while fielding questions from journalists at Government House, Ado-Ekiti on his birthday, said the President should show love even to those who are not his party members.

His words: “I have many wishes on my 57th birthday, but one of them, which will interest you is that I wish I had received ‎President Buhari’s congratulatory call and that would have woken me up today as one of the governors in this country.

“He should have done that as a father of the nation and as I am a leading ‎opposition voice in the country.

“His call would have reassured me, as a fearless man who believes that things should be done rightly, to show himself as a father of all, preaching that we must extend love to everybody and not only to those in his political party.

On the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) congress, he expressed optimism that a credible candidate would emerge as the party chairman while members would end the convention as one party.

Meanwhile, the PDP chairmanship aspirant, Professor Tunde Adeniran, yesterday said Fayose, may soon drop his 2019 presidential ambition to support him in his quest to become the party’s national chairman.

Adeniran stated this when he visited the national secretariat of the party in Abuja to submit his nomination form.

However, the chairman of the PDP national caretaker committee, Ahmed Makarfi, has cautioned against alleged breaches of the PDP peace accord signed by chairmanship aspirants on Tuesday by Adeniran’s supporters.

The former education minister told journalists after submitting the nomination form that although Fayose had hoped to contest the 2019 presidential election, the reality at the moment is that the party had reserved that seat for North.

Adeniran stressed that the earlier Fayose realises that his presidential ambition would not work, the sooner will he begin to mobilise people to support his chairmanship bid.