Buhari, Tinubu are strange bedfellows Bode George Chief Olabode George is the former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. He said at an interactive session with journalists recently that the APC cannot win any future election in Lagos and insisted that Chief Bola Tinubu and General Muhammadu Buhari are strange bedfellows, among other issues. Senior Correspondent Ayo Esan was there. Excerpts: When you were addressing your party members, you said PDP leaders should come together so that what happened in Egypt and Tunisia would not happen in Nigeria. Can you elaborate on that Sometimes when you are within the enclave, you may not see all the issues but once you are out you will have a deeper understanding. I have been part of our partys management since 1999 and I have seen a lot in it. Our party is like Nigeria. As I have been saying, it has members from the swampy forest in the South to the Savannah region in the North. What is happening here now in our party has happened before. You remembered when Baba Obasanjo was craving for second term, there was noise that he signed a paper that he was going to spend one term and a lot of that and we survived it. You know that heating up the polity is not the issue. The founding fathers of our party who decided the six geo- political zones were very mindful of this political entity called Nigeria. If you look at it from 1960, we had the North, South-West, South-East, all the minorities were not known. As a member of the National Executive Council, NEC, of the party for 12 years, there is nothing that is happening now that has not happened before. But we would get together and talk, not on the pages of newspapers. Overheating the polity and telling others that there is nobody like you is absolute nonsense. No individual can be bigger than the platform that he represents. You can talk but at the same time I want to plead with everybody because I was there when we won elections in the South-West in 2003. I was the Director General of that campaign in 2003 that brought our governors into place. All our governors have become heavy landlords in this party. Now if you as a landlord, you heard that some little monsters had entered your house, you run out and take refuge and you become a tenant, is that wise Whoever is the monster, we will carry log, attack that monster and demolish it so that you continue to be a landlord in your house. Those who ran away that time returned back here. Then how do you see the challenge of the All Progressives Congress Those guys in APC are not democrats. What is it that happened to the AD It dissolved into oblivion because it is not national in outlook. It was a tribal party. Now when you look at their antecedents from AD to AC to ACN now to APC, maybe tomorrow it will be Phensic. Nigeria cannot afford any more demonstration. While we welcome a bolder party to compete with the PDP, I have traversed the nook and cranny of Nigeria, snaking through campaigning. That is why you can see an APC government driving out Nigerians from a part of their own country. That reminded me of what Hitler did. That is how they started with the Jews. Does that make a political, economic sense or any sense at all as a Nigerian to start packing people and dumping them somewhere that is why I said that all these little people who just stumble into power dont even know this entity called Nigeria. It is a shame that the Governor of Imo State who is my friend, Rochas Okorocha can be in that party and they are deporting his people. So what is his relevance there He is a foundation member of this party, the PDP. He also ran away because of a little problem. If your wife abuses you in the morning and you run away and say I wont come back to this house. If you go to another woman, the same thing will happen to you. It is better you stay in that house and correct the thing so that you can get stronger. But we learnt some of the PDP governors who are aggrieved may join APC Our governors must not go anywhere. This is their house, the platform that brought them into limelight. If you bite the fingers that feed you, you are in trouble. They should stay within this party and let us solve whatever problem that is on ground. There should be discussion. What is wrong in talking Even if you start shooting here at the end of the day, you must come back to the discussion table. You cannot have crisis in your family and go to the marketplace and start saying my father did this and that. No sir. As I said, if you get out of the enclave you see better. There was one parliamentarian recently in England who went and made a statement against the Conservative Party. They asked for his resignation or else he was going to be thrown out of the parliament. You have to toe the line, if you have any issue lets go to the caucus and discuss it. You cant start washing the dirty linen of the party on the pages of newspapers. Only the spokesperson of the party can talk about many things. Not that you call the press, saying Bode George is grandstanding. Grandstanding I was there in 2002 and 2003 and knew what happened. We begged the people and cajoled them. My advice is that we should sit down and talk. When there is a political meeting, you should talk there. Not on the pages of newspapers. When I heard that our governors are already meeting with the president and so on, I knew we will get to the end of it and stay for another four years. What is four years in the life of a country And this is where I was coming. Why did the First Republic collapse We had the North, the South-West and the South-East. There was no minority. But Chief Obafemi Awolowo mentioned during the Constitutional meeting in the 1950s that the minorities should be recognised. These six geo-political zones were the idea that he took to the Constitutional Conference in Britain then. That the South-West, South-East, minorities should be taken care of. Otherwise, how can we say we are members of an association and you cannot be leader some day I am trying to go into the depth so that the people can appreciate it. If you look at it, those who started PDP quickly went into that idea. Do you know that the late Chief Bola Ige was part of our party He wrote our constitution and gave us the flag. You can see that the good brains of those days sat together from the swampy forest to the Savannah region and brought out an organisation and that has sustained Nigeria for that long. Turn by turn Nigeria Limited, everybody will have his own time. That is the policy of our party. We didnt create the situation on ground and nobody knew that once you get the power, you would die on it, no. Now that it has happened and another zone has taken it, what is wrong in saying okay, four years more, so that, that sense of belonging, of commitment, loyalty will be there. We will talk, have robust debates, calm the nerves and peace will return to our party. That is why these people are saying they want to form APC, and in the meantime they are shipping other Nigerians out of Lagos. You see the work of the Almighty God. They cant even tolerate opposition. They had even pasted a notice in my house now because it is close to Orji Kalus house. I am waiting for them to come and demolish my house. They will know that there is a one-man riot squad. Let them come and demolish the house that was in existence before Fashola was born. Do they want to demolish your house Did I not go to prison by Lagos State law. I served Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, but was convicted by the law made by the Lagos State House of Assembly. It happened in the service of my people, and in the service of the people I wont be the first that would go to prison and I wouldnt be the last. You know recently I was reading the last book of Nelson Mandela, Conversation with myself, go and get it. I was really elated. He said the prison cell is the only place you will rediscover yourself. Because at that point, you will re-examine yourself. You know, you have no freedom, every thought about the ups and down of your life will come to you. On my first few days in prison, as a trained soldier if I had AK 47, I would have been a murderer out of annoyance. But thanks to God for the people, the books and the Bible. I just sat down and looked into it. Do I ever think that this situation will come and I will be able to talk to you, they dont want that! But God created it and until I die, anywhere there is injustice, I will say it. Because as long as you run the course of injustice, there will never be peace. That is my thought, and why I said it openly that all this noise, we had it before. But we surmounted it for the sake of this nation called Nigeria. If you look at it from Tunisia; it started when a graduate was pushing a cart, no job. Suddenly a policeman came arrested him, they bundled him and he rose up at that moment. He went and bought petrol and burnt himself. That was the beginning of the Arab Spring. See Syria, the people who had lived together. We dont want to be a failed state. There is enough for everybody, we must respect ourselves. It is not about creating a new party, how can Muhammadu Buhari and Bola Tinubu work together We are looking for serious chaos. Are you saying that in 2015 APC would not win elections in Lagos State APC cannot have any way here. You can see what they have done to the common people. What is the alternative for the okada riders that were chased out of jobs Also the traders; where in the world wont you find the street traders Even in England, there are street traders, in America, everywhere. Then you carried these young boys, first of all you locked them in a place and then dump them somewhere. This is not good. As of now there seem to be peace between the leadership of the PDP in Lagos. Are you sure that a few weeks to the 2015 election there wont be problem within the party leadership as was in the past The question is very loaded and very pregnant with meaning. You know, the point is this, when time comes for elective offices, we always say they should go to congresses. There was no time that I directed that this person should be the secretary or whatever. Even in my Ward, I dont get involved in the way they choose the leaders. But to them, it is Bode George. Once they have done it, we have done it. I dont interfere. All of them cannot be winners. Some will win, some will lose. In fact, we are also looking at another methodology of approaching the emergence of these candidates. We had a meeting with the President. Ideas were mooted. This issue of going to congress has seen its advantages and disadvantages. We are asking, why cant we make another approach It is not a Berlin Wall, even Berlin Wall eventually collapsed. We should look at it or marry it like a consensus candidate. How that methodology will be is yet to be developed. But it is an idea that is going to be used. You can see now the infighting in Anambra. We can avoid that. Let us get all the bullets ready for the enemies, not for ourselves. I think it is good to do a little bit of reflection. It is just to make sure that those that would not be happy that they have lost at the primary will be convinced by their people. We are studying the way it is done in other countries. Look at it now, didnt Mrs Clinton and Obama compete Obama won, she lost. But they knew that there are certain areas that she would make an advantage to Obama. They agreed. Politics is not a do or die affair. It was a very bitter battle but at the end, she became the Secretary of State which is a very powerful position in America. The world is a global village.
Posted on: Sun, 25 Aug 2013 10:09:45 +0000
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