If Tinubu invites me to work with him, I ‘ll oblige him – Bode George

Chief Olabode George, the former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in an interview with political correspondents, speaks of the reasons his party lost the presidential election, reasons on need to rebuild the party, his grouse with President Tinubu and why he will work with him if he is invited……CONTINUE READING...CONTINUE READING

Flawed process that brought Tinubu and my wish for him

My personal view about the process that brought Tinubu into office is disgraceful.The chairman of INEC was watching as if he was missing his charge.The same method, the same night, he got the result, the same night, in the middle of the night, he declared the winner and handed the certificate. The issue of not making 25 percent in Abuja or not, whether Abuja is part of Nigeria or not, all these are shenanigans. For God sake, power is transient, and I always refer to General Alexander the Great, who came with nothing into the world and died and was buried with nothing despite the enormous wealth he amassed. I don’t want to go into details. People have been talking to me, I don’t want to look irresponsible, and I will be accused of being heartless. Vengeance is not mine, it belongs to Almighty God. Whatever you sow, you will reap. The best you can do, traditionally, in my own part of the world, anybody that is going on journey and comes to your house, to inform you he is travelling, you will wish him journey mercy and guidance of Almighty God.

On my party PDP

What I will say is, you know there are still cases in court and my party is fighting like a lion and we still hope we will win. I am an irredentist member of the PDP. The day I leave this party, then I retire from partisan politics, because the way the founding fathers conceptualised and established this party, I will never be happy.The beauty of it is that all the baba that sat together to establish the PDP, some of them are members of the first republic, when Tafawa Balewa was prime minister, you know what happened that time when the British were leaving Nigeria. The proposal was that we should have parliamentary system of government, you know, it was in the British culture, they don’t want a totalitarian system of government, they want debate, they want to discuss. No abuses and if you say anything out of tune, the speaker will caution you. In their parliament, somebody may say Mr. Prime minister, you don’t know what you said I am not saying you are a liar but you are not very familiar with the truth. They will just laugh over it but can you do that here? It is not our culture, and at that time, the other flaw we had in the first republic was that the majority had their say, had their way, but the minority were all losing, both North and South, they created that perpetual friction, until the military came in 1966. That military is still good to debate, and we are saying now, let us clean the past and move forward. Another constitution will still not solve it. Justice, fairness and equity is it.

What our founding fathers stood on, you can imagine late Chief Bola Ige was in the PDP, he was part of those that founded the PDP. Can you imagine Chief Bola sitting down with Chief Alex Ekwueme, to agree on political issue, you will think it is impossible or Chief Jim Nwobodo sitting together with Chief Alex Ekwueme, Chief Solomon Lar, Abubakar Rimi, Professor Jubril Aminu, Alhaji Adamu Ciroma, all these people left aside their personal ambition, their differences, they now went into that brilliant discussion. They divided Nigeria into six geo political zones and sought out six top position in Nigeria, to which each zone will go home with one position or the other. After eight years, all the positions in the North will shift to the South so that issue of majority perpetually getting the goodies and the minority just been onlookers, we’ve resolved that. I have not seen any better system. Remember when APC first came, they said ‘we don’t believe in zoning, what a nonsense, we are not going to do zoning! What did they do at the end? Where was Buhari from, where was Osinbajo from? Where was the Speaker from? Where was the Senate President from? That was the major problem the PDP discountenanced and landed us in the deck because the National Chairman emerged from the same North where the presidential candidate of the party also came from. I said Haba! You wanted to go back to where we tried to avoid, but they kicked. There is no monkey anymore in Idanre (Ondo state). When we tried to point out to them that South-West had been left behind and not included in their calculation, they said we should come back after elections. Then we said okay, we would also after elections. Now, we have seen the consequence.

Introduction of religion in 2023 politics

And these guys, one other thing they did you know when we brought religion into the issue, it is irrelevant but because of the nature of our power brokers, they added religion. Is your faith not in your mind? What has it got to become public adjudication? So that issue was also waved because now you look at an individual about his performance, about his competence, and you say this man is the one, and not about being a Muslim or Christian. It has happened before and we avoided it under Baba Obasanjo. I was there when Yar’Adua developed interest in the presidential race, who is going to be his running mate? Then the Senate President also at that time was a Christian, the Speaker was also a Christian, the Majority Leader in the Senate was also a Christian, haa! People were looking at people’s competence, nobody thought otherwise and we thought it was better to balance up before people will misinterpret it and fight our party to stupor. This is because the zoning thing is all part of natural discussion of the apex leader, that’s what you call a party, it’s not a private company because if you go to Abuja now you would see posters of those who want to be Senate President and Speaker of the National Assembly on the streets of Abuja. I say what? What is going on? Where is the party because the party is supreme? The party is stronger than any individual. If the party cannot handle it first day, wrong step, they end up there fighting. Remember the last one they did which they now termed as Saraki’s syndrome, certainly it wouldn’t work.

On his reaction if Tinubu invites him in his government

My reaction like I have said, there is nothing personal. Look I trained in the military. You know in the military, whoever is in your trench next to you is your brother. When you go out to say what is our mission in the military? It is to defend our country. If he comes and says look, what do you feel about this, what do you feel about that, let’s work together in the interest of this country, why would I refuse? This nation also trained me. I will tell you one thing that happened in my days in the University of Lagos with my colleagues. Lagos was created in 1967, so ’67/’68 session, we were in the first year and so as we were going to the dinning, they announced that they had given the western state students scholarship. We went there and we were eating and I said to my friends, we were four, two are late now. We were from Lagos state. I said tomorrow, let us go to the governor’s office. They thought I was mad. You know in those days, the military was with force. But General Mobolaji Johnson’s wife, Funmilayo, was my mother’s senior sister, if they lock us up, my mother would fight to get us released. It was on that premise that we all agreed.

So after that, the following day, we headed to the governor’s office. We went there, four of us. The first thing they asked us when we got there was that who did we want to see? We said we wanted to see the governor, and asked us, from where? (Laughs). You know the ‘godogodo’ outside, shouted at you to vamuss, but there was one man who said okay, where did you say you come from? We told him we are students from UNILAG, he then asked us to show our student pass. We showed our ID cards. He then asked if we got an appointment to see the governor, we said no, and, thereafter, he asked us to write our names and we did. He took the names inside. True story. Now, who are the people inside? Papa Bankole Oki, the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Adeyemi Bero was the Secretary to the Government, Papa Domingo was the Protocol Chief to General Mobolaji Johnson, then Ayo’s father, Justice William, the former Chief Judge of Lagos, Ayo Phillip, her father was the Solicitor General. Those were the four, they were waiting for the governor to arrive. So we entered there and quickly prostrated. They saw the names, and they were looking at us, you could imagine how young we were. We were Engineering students of University of Lagos and everybody has been giving scholarship to their students that we too needed scholarship in Lagos too. Papa Bankole Oki and Secretary to the Government listened to us. Papa Oki was coming here and later I reminded him one day of this episode. Papa Bankole Oki said okay, we would take it up with the governor. Do you know that three months after that, they established Lagos State Scholarship Board, we benefitted from it.

My Lagos background

Then I joined the military, the military trained me. There is no part of the world that I have not been, training and doing exercises. This country trained us. So we must be able to put something back to the system that would also positively impact on the younger ones, to put a smile on their faces. Any time I go to my area, Lagos Island, I have never seen such a negative impact on my people. I grew up there. My family house is there. Isale Igangan is our playing ground, Campus Square was our playing field.

Poverty in the land

But now, look at those children, there is no future, everybody is running to CMS to be agbero, the touts are making money there. But in their future, no skills.

Now, it’s not only here, I have been everywhere in this country now, the squalor, the poverty, the anger and the hunger are more prevalent in the North than in the South and those boys are educated now.

They are challenging their leaders because you exposed them a bit to the University and they are back, now they are looking, they are in their babas’ huts. How do you think uneducated persons would derail a train successfully, if not because they’ve been educated and they are angry.

When the President visited Kano, didn’t you see the reception? So they are challenging. they’ve been here the Northern Youth Council, they said Baba we want to meet the younger people. This is so because the wind of change at that last election was different. What is their party? Labour Party. Is that a party? It was a new wind of change and it went round across and don’t let them discountenance it. Let them televise the Court process live. Though the judge had ruled on it, I am not a lawyer so I am unlearned but practical men we are on the field, we want to see it. Is it a secret cult, they were giving excuses on the costs. The court wouldn’t even paid for those television coverages, no, never. We want to see so that we can be convinced. That’s one.

For the younger generation that are coming who would now go and read law would have that video, it would be part of lectures to discuss. So I want to plead with everybody in this country, we have no other country, as he (Tinubu) is now the President of Nigeria, like I said, prayer is the key. I would pray for Nigeria because praying for your leaders, that’s what we were taught so that when making decision, he would remember the people all over.

There are two categories of people, those who are running, telling him Baba, there is nobody like you. I have been through that. Small governors too, they tell you that there is nobody like you, you are the best and lying to you. In the end you will know that the only one is the Almighty God. When he goes in to look at things objectively, God will direct his mind because the fallout would hit all of us……CONTINUE READING