The crisis within the People's Democratic Party (PDP) seems to have taken a new twist, as Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Lere Olayinka, said former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is not destined to rule Nigeria.

Olayinka made the comment in a statement in Abuja on Wednesday, November 14. In it, he said the PDP presidential ticket would no longer be available to "serial betrayals of the party, who are suffering the consequences of their past sins against the party and its members."

He stressed that Atiku must abandon his thoughts of contesting the 2027 presidential election under the party's ticket, saying that those encouraging him to do so "should let the PDP breathe."

His statement follows that of his principal, Nyesom Wike who told Atiku during a media parley in his office that there was no chance he was going to secure the party’s ticket in 2027.

He said: “That Atiku is venerating himself for contesting PDP ticket with Wike and Tambuwal, people who were just a little above 25 as of 1993, when he contested the Social Democratic Party SDP presidential primary and came third, is the more reason he needs to go home and rest and stop acting like the proverbial cock that failed to realize that it is now elderly.”

Describing Atiku as someone not destined to be president of Nigeria, Olayinka said; “It is obvious that he (Atiku) is paying the price of betraying the PDP in 2003, 2007 and 2014. If not, the same presidency he has contested twice and lost, could have been his to just pick if he had avoided being inordinately ambitious while he was Vice President.”

“It was this desperation that made him to contest for president as candidate of Action Congress in 2007, while still serving as Vice President, elected under the platform of the PDP. A serving Vice President joining others to form another party and contesting as candidate of the new party against his own party.

That’s Alhaji Atiku Abubakar!

“Most importantly, Atiku’s conscience will continue to prick him on his roles in Lagos in 2023, and I am sure that even his apology to PDP members in 2018 can never remove from his body, that garment of betrayal.

“Therefore, it is again being sounded to his ears and those of the people lying to him that he is the only one who can win the presidency for the PDP that the ticket of the party will not be for someone like him, who will lose election and run to Dubai, only to come back two years to another election”, Olayinka added.