Pre-election issues haunting PDP, says Bode George

Former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Bode George, has urged gladiators in its internal crisis to drop their personal ambitions and have a roundtable discussion on issues in the party.

In an interview, George said, “I know we have an internal crisis in our party; it’s normal. There’s no organisation anywhere in the world where you will not have some disagreement. I am pleading with all sides, they should calm their nerves.

“We can get back to the table and discuss at length. All participants should drop their personal ambitions. Hatred, pettiness, and jealousy are normal all over the world. We can disagree without being disagreeable.”

Tracing the crisis to the failure of the party to resolve the leadership tussle that preceded the 2023 general elections, George said: “There is no party in the world where the chairman of the party comes from the same zone as the president, the presidential candidate of the party. That was where the disagreement started, and they didn’t handle it well. That was why we went to war, divided. And of course, how will we not be defeated when divided?

“We could not prevent that from happening. And as we are now, there is no solid opposition to counter the lacklustre or non-seriousness of those in government now. We are busy fighting ourselves.”

The PDP leader cautioned politicians against political greed and over-ambition, pointing out that “there is a new concept now in politics called President Joe Biden’s political strategy.”

He added, “When you reach a certain age and a certain class, you hand over to the younger generation to continue for the sake of your country. No individual can be larger or bigger than a nation, and if you have that as your concept, nobody can be in power forever.”

On the allegation that he refused to support Atiku because he’s not from his region, George said, “When Buhari contested against Atiku Abubakar, they came to ask for my service. I was at the forefront because, at that time, he was favoured as a presidential candidate. I knew what I did here in Lagos. I knew what I did, even for the First Lady, his first wife, because we followed the party’s constitution.

“Let me tell you, I have no iota of tribalism in my blood. My best friend today is a gentleman I met in the military. He is a fully bona fide Fulani man. He is my brother at any level. I have a lot of these friends all over this country. So if you cannot tell the truth to power, then you are deceiving yourself.

“When we went back for the second election, this last election, we saw that things were not right. Somebody from the North had just spent eight years. How can we now support another person from the North for another eight years? No, it doesn’t work that way.

“They manipulated the system. We kept warning them, don’t do this. He divided the party, and so we divided our votes, and then we lost. So how do we go forward? We will set up a committee to look into the general election and the post-election so that we can prepare ourselves. Look at the percentage of card-carrying members of the party. How many? What is that percentage in the population?

“The problem with the PDP is that everybody is a problem; no one person is the problem. If you have that kind of thing in an organisation, what do you do if you don’t want to scatter the organisation? A proper committee should investigate what has led to that, what is agitating the mind of A, the mind of B, and this is what I am saying as a life member of the Board of Trustees. For God’s sake, let everybody calm down.

“History will judge. Our leaders, since 1998, conceptualised the idea of looking at our past and projecting a workable political platform. No matter how the history of this country is written, you can never forget Papa Alex Ekueme. He was the chief convener of different political groups. He called Chief Bola Ige from the Southwest, Alex Nwobodo from his side, Papa Solomon Lar, and so many others we called the G14. They sat back, assessed, and carried out analysis.
Making reference to why the First Republic and Shehu Shagari’s government failed, George asked, “Why did the First Republic fail in the first instance? Why did the Shagari government fail? The military government kept coming in and out. How can we prevent the return of the military to government?”