Former Deputy National Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Bode George has revealed that he declined to serve in the disciplinary committee of the party because federal character was not observed before constituting the disciplinary and reconciliation committee.
He also went further to state that the party must conduct a post mortem of the events the surrounded the abysmal performance of the party in the 2023.
You may wish to recall that the main opposition party recently inaugurated a Disciplinary committee led by Chief Tom Ikimi and Eyitayo Jegede, (SAN) as Secretary which George was named a member and Reconciliation Committee led by former governor of Osun State, Olagunsoye Oyinlola but George declined membership of the committee.
Speaking with TVC recently in a programme monitored by The AUTHORITY, George said that federal character was one of the critical elements handed down by the founders of the PDP. He said that the committee was skewed as both the Chairman and Secretary were both from the South West hence flouting the law of natural justice.
According to the elder statesman, “If you want to be just and be fair and be equitable, you must look at the format. First of all, I have made my reaction known to the people by my saying I will not serve. Justice and fairness have no linkages with anybody. You are either fair or you are not. You are either equitable or you are not. I looked at the structure. The chairman is from one side, the Secretary is also from the same side. If you want to be fair, you must balance. This is one of the problems we have today in the party. They are not problems that have overwhelmed us. Let us come back and do a post mortem analysis of the last election. What sent us out, why did we lose the election? Simplicita?”
He said that for the party to move forward, it must conduct an audit of the circumstances that led to its abysmal performance in the 2023 general election.
“There’s no place in the world that the chairman of the party will come from the same zone as 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, divided how will we not be a defeated house? We could not prevent that from happening. And as we are now, there is no solid opposition to counter the lackluster or non-seriousness of those in government now. We are busy fighting ourselves.
“I was one of those elected on the first elective convention of our party in 1998 December, and we knew what they handed over, no perpetuity in any office. That is why they divided it three down to the south and three to the north.
“All positions will not come to the south. All positions will not come to the north. And as they go, they rotate around there but they now wanted to denounce that and we said, look the man who just finished as head of state, Buhari, my boss had just finished. Now when my dear friend, Atiku said he wanted to, we said, No, this is not possible. How do we sell that to our own people, for them to accept us? Because we can’t carry only members of a political party, they are not the only electoral members who will vote. People are looking at us. They are watching us. How would I go and campaign, no, the Constitution is clear.
“And then somehow he emerged, then we said, okay, fine. After a lot of discussion, bargaining and all that, we said, Okay, we want the national chairman must now go back to the south. He said, no, that was where the division started. And so if you are setting up a reconciliation committee and a disciplinary committee, let us do a post mortem analysis that led us to this division during the election. The pre-election, the proper election and post-election matters, we will discuss it and after that, you will now be able to now set up a committee to reconcile people”.
George went further to deny the allegation that he has since seized from criticisng the policies of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu because he is from the South West.
He said, “I have no iota of any tribalism in my blood. My best friend today was a gentleman that 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 now went back for 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 somebody 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.
He however appealed to all the members of the party to sheat their sword, work in unity to achieve progress in the party.
