A founding member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Bode George, speaks on the lingering disagreement between the presidential candidate of the party for the 2023 election, Atiku Abubakar, and the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, which has torn the party apart in recent times, among other issues, on a Channels TV programme, Politics Today, monitored by DEBORAH ONYOFUFEKE

What is your take on the recent visit of the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, to the former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, who is believed to still be a member of the PDP?

It’s disgraceful, whatever Bola is looking for in baba’s house, I have no idea but I can tell you that where truth needs to be told, he will not mince his word. As a leader, as an icon, as a father, you must allow all kinds of characters to pay a visit to him, to listen to his words of wisdom, to listen to his sense of reasoning, I have no qualms about that. So, I wish him Bola the very best.

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You have not hidden your feeling of dislike against Tinubu over the years, now that he is the candidate of the ruling party are you not afraid that he may trounce your party in the south-west in the forthcoming election?

Telling the truth to power honours all those who stand by the truth. I don’t think we have enough time to X-ray Lagos State. Is it, the economic state, the financial state, the general security of lives and property, or the well-being of millions of children who are just roaming about the streets? It has nothing to do with me, but I am concerned because I was born here. I am a bona fide Lagosian, we knew what Lagos was like and Lagos remains the commercial nerve centre, not only in Nigeria but in the whole of West Africa. What has this fellow done to us, I have asked a very simple question and none of them has been able to answer it. Who owns that Alpha Beta Company? So, when I listen to jokers talking, how he has done so much, two-time governor, is there any governor that had been there, that was not hand-picked by him, number two, you see, the beauty of this process we are heading into now, is the fact that we thank the government of the day, for bringing and changing the procedure in the electoral process to our country Nigeria. You know after the election in Osun State, he was quick to discountenance and to disabuse to say all kinds of things that it was not working, the results are now being screened, they are screened perpetually, instantaneously, as the votes are there, they no longer carry ballot results sheet from one location by hand, where he had gotten so swollen that he manipulates the result with his congregation and his colleagues, this time, the will of the people will be respected, the will of the people cannot be subjugated or subdued by any of his people, the result will be affirmative. Now you will know, whether he is really in charge of Lagos or not because all along, we’ve been shouting manipulations of results from the polling station to the coalition centres. Even results have been hand and carried from Lagos to the remote areas of Nigeria, to the coalition centre. That’s archaic and we have been modernised. Nigeria is now joining other civilised countries of the world, to say yes, those who will be elected by the people of this country will be honest because the voice of the people will be respected and heard loud and clear. So, forget about the shenanigans of yesteryears, deceit, and all the filthy things.

As a leader and founding member of the party, are you worried about the festering crisis between Atiku and Wike?

It is a major bother, not only to me, it is a bother to a lot of the committed elders, members of the upper chamber of the party. It looks like some kind of a devil has entered into the midst of our party But let me tell you something, we have the capacity to resolve our crisis, in our party, we have enough experience leaders, we have committed leaders, we have the loyal leaders and followers, who will sit and be able to handle and resolve this crisis once and for all. Fortunately, we have about a month or a week, five weeks from now before we commencement of campaigns. All my appeal now is that Governor Wike should cool down, and presidential candidate Atiku should also cool down because none of their ambition is bigger and higher than the ambition of our party. We are appealing to both of them because there is no organisation anywhere in the world that will not have a crisis but the capacity and the ability And the ability to handle the resolution of such a crisis will be a measure of how developed, or respectable that organisation is. If you are a member of an organisation and you don’t have a crisis, then it is not an organization but from my experience and my commitment to this party, we have people and we have started to work on it. It is just one more hurdle to cross and we will be ready like Freddy for the battle to the 2023 election. Yes, sometimes when this happens, you wonder if is it mainly coming from our people or are there some other unseen hands, trying to further expand the crisis, so that we can’t mend ourselves but let me assure the Nigerian electorates, we’ve been tested before, we have the capacity, we have the people, we have committed and experienced leaders who will tell those groups to sit down, keep quiet, get into a room, lock the door and we will and we will surprise Nigerians that we will come out resolved, prepared to deliver our party to the electorate, I have no doubt in my mind. The process is ongoing now. The solutions to what has become a tough fight for your party to recover, especially the rift that is now so blown up between the candidate and the Governor of Rivers state, for those who are calling for the resignation and ouster of Senator Iyorchia Ayu, and they are referring to perhaps, what we do not know to exist. Let’s say in fact that there’s a commitment that he should leave office should a Northern candidate of the PDP emerge. Now we are not very sure that, that kind of document or agreement was made. The fact he said he made a commitment in an interview he granted to a newspaper that he will as a democrat step aside should the party want him to if a Northern candidate emerges from the party.

Is there a solution because this is one of the grounds that the Wike side allegedly is asking for a way forward for the party?

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It’s one of the major issues. When the founding fathers designed this party, remember, this is the first political party in this country that is not regional, that is not tribal. It bears the full colours of Nigeria, from the swampy forest to the savannah region in the north. The founding fathers divided Nigeria into six geopolitical zones because, in the First Republic, the majority had their way, the majority had their say and the minorities were not just pure onlookers both north and south. That created a lot of friction. In 1998 when these founding fathers, came together to say listen, how does resolve this, how do we prevent these khaki boys, these military boys from ever coming back to the government, they then decided to let us divide Nigeria into six geopolitical zones. These six geopolitical zones are not reflected in our national constitution but they created it for peace and they then went forward to say there will be six top positions in the land. The president, the vice president, the Senate president, the speaker, the secretary of government, and the national chairman of the party. Do you know what that did, it then related to the party management, with the legislative arm and the executive arm.

There was a synergy and that every zone, will go home with one of these too positions. If the president comes from the north, the vice-president will go to the south, the senate president will come from the north, and the speaker will come from the south. The secretary to the government will come from the north and the national chairman will come from the south. So three up, three down. After eight years, those positions in the north will come to the south and those positions in the south will go to the north. It created that sense of belonging, that sense of oneness, what you call inclusivity in our party. Section 7, sub-section 3(f) of our current constitution affirms that zoning and rotation will remain sacrosanct in our party, so, never in the history of this party, can a presidential candidate, or a president come from the same zone as the chairman of the party. So, Ayu himself was assistant secretary to Prof Jerry Gana, in the first committee set up to establish this party. So, he knows and all we are saying for inclusivity, give us a position that we, in the south will take home and convince our people that yes, they now have presidential candidates. What are we going to use to convince the platform that the larger members of the society in the south, have brought this back home? You cannot tell us that until after the election. If you want to convince them, you must win their hearts. I told my brother that what is goose is good for the gander. Imagine if it is from this side that it has happened, would they have accepted that, no! No individual can be higher and more committed to this nation than all of us together.