
Chief Bode George is former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and a member of the party’s Board of Trustees (BoT).
In this interview, he speaks on the crisis rocking the party, appointment of a former Minister of Special Duties, Taminu Turaki, to mediate on the dispute, among other issues. ANAYO EZUGWU writes
Can you share your thoughts on the latest crisis rocking the PDP. You have previously talked about how you believe that at the core of the crisis is essentially a clash of personalities. Do you still find that to be the case?
I was part of the meeting because I was able to join them via Zoom. I have always stated that when you have a problem that starts, if you don’t arrest it on time, it will become cancerous. It will almost consume everybody.
I believe the stage in which we are, whatever is happening between the two secretaries, Samuel Anyanwu and the other former National Youth Leader, Sunday UdeOkoye, is a reflection of the lacklustre approach to solving this problem.
I was disgusted and ashamed that this kind of crisis would get to a crescendo where our public image as a party is being eroded. It was a show of shame, very disgraceful.
But I thank the members of the Board of Trustees, because those of us who are online, somehow when the crisis started, when people were punching themselves and misbehaving, they just cut us off, so we didn’t see it again. But my take is simply this:
The contentious matter is that Ude-Okoye, who is now acting secretary of the party, went to the Court of Appeal and the court gave him judgement that he was right to take over the position of the national secretary. But the national secretary, Anyanwu, went to another Court of Appeal that said status quo ante bellum be maintained.
Itis highly depressing and very disgusting when you look at the party, a formidable institution, a party that is like an Iroko tree in this country, being decimated because of personal ambition.
It bothers some of us that started right from 1998. I have said that resolving this crisis at the midpoint doesn’t make any political sense.
Let us set up a committee and I’ve made my views known to the BoT. As the custodian of the laws and regulations as well as liabilities and assets of the party, we must be able to set up a committee to go into in-depth analysis.
What happened? You don’t solve a problem by starting midpoint, thinking you can cover up the other issues. All sides of the divide are making us angry and what we were saying is that we should avoid a terrible public image of our party.
People have started saying, oh, your party is dead. We say, no, the party is not dead. We can disagree without being disagreeable. We should be able to rise above this pettiness.
What happened at the last national convention was the beginning of the crisis and to date, all sides are still very deep in their trenches, firing salvos. It’s not going to help this country.
The national interest of the party must be much higher than the personal interest of any individual. And no individual can ever be bigger than the party. Let these managers rise above this.
Let’s call a spade a spade. PDP is drifting, and we are drifting very badly, like a rudderless ship. I will remain consistent in my argument. We must go to the beginning of this madness, so that it will never repeat itself.
And I am happy that the members of the Board of Trustees, the elders of the party, the custodians were there, when this went on. But the good thing there is that they were able to manage that crisis.
If we do not rise above that pettiness, it will expand. This is 2025, by the middle of this year, politics will start, and we keep blaming the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) or Nyesom Wike.
You don’t solve a problem by starting midpoint, thinking you can cover up the other issues. All sides of the divide are making us angry
Let’s get inside and sort ourselves out without missing words. Nobody, no individual is higher than the party.
And it’s not a private enterprise of anybody. The essence of having the Board of Trustees, the upper chamber of the party, is to be able to resolve crises when they do occur.
That’s why in the BoT, we don’t do any elections. People are appointed based on their experience, their contribution, their knowledge, and their standing in the public.
You heard what the acting National Chairman, Umar Damagum, was saying, that there are some leaders too, who are covertly intervening on either A or B.
For me, we have to set up a proper committee that will extricate the mess that started on that convention day and sort it out. Anybody guilty of any serious offences must be dealt with. It is not a private concern. And we should have no apologies.
If you are a member of an organisation, there are rules and regulations of what you should do. So, follow them. If you can’t follow the regulations, and you think you can manoeuvre A to B for your sustenance, then we ease you out.
The BoT has already set up a committee led by Taminu Turaki to investigate what transpired. Senator Adolphus Wabara is talking about unity and discipline within the party, did you attend the meeting and what do you think about what Atiku Abubakar said that it is the APC trying to destabilize the opposition parties, harass and intimidate people?
Let me be very clear here; I was there, not physically, but I was there. I joined that meeting via Zoom and we had stated that, yes, this is a new technology.
If people cannot come into Abuja, you can join by Zoom. First of all, the administrative secretary of the party, sent me the wrong link.
So, I waited for about 30 minutes, and I couldn’t join up. I called the national headquarters of our party, and they now gave me the correct link.
So, I joined up. At the point that I joined up, the chairman of the Board of Trustees was still making his speech, so I wasn’t too late to join.
I was there from the beginning. Now, we got cut off by the time somebody physically pushed the young man, Ude-Okoye, the former national youth leader of the party. They were physically pushing him out, and I was raving with anger.
I wondered: What on earth was going on; we are touts? With the experience, the age, and the commitment that we had had from the beginning of the establishment of this political party, it was disgraceful.
And my concern, and I must state it, had been that, we have to be careful because of the public image this will send. If you want to be a winner in a political setting in any nation, your public image is very important.
Now, what are these people trying to achieve? If people are looking at us and saying, can you trust this party? Does it mean there is no crisis in APC? Of course, they do have.
They have never held any meeting, no National Executive Committee meeting. Abdullahi Ganduje, who is the chairman, was just imposed on them. So, it’s not only us. But for God’s sake, we can resolve our own.
Throwing tantrums and pushing issues is not the way to go. They say, oh, it’s the APC that is doing this, the APC that is doing that. We’re just trying to undermine the issue.
We must sit down, all sides as I have stated. All sides of the divide, both Atiku and Wike, we must be able, to be bold enough to tell them, enough of this nonsense. And that is the committee that I have been saying. The committee set up now is just to look at the legal implications.
As I said to you, Anyanwu is saying that yes, there was a judgement that gave the ruling in favour of Ude-Okoye, who is to be the national secretary of the party but he went to another Court of Appeal and the court said status quo ante bellum be maintained. Now, people started, asking: What is the status quo ante bellum?
People are saying that it is the status quo established by the Court of Appeal that gave positive judgement to Ude-Okoye, and that Anyanwu, if he wanted to do anything, should have gone to the higher court, which is the Supreme Court.
You said that Atiku as well as Wike committed ‘political hara-kiri.’ I can understand where you’re coming from about Atiku but Wike is your man; you were together in the G5 and Unity Group. Which hara-kiri did Wike commit and have you fallen apart with him?
Let me be very clear with you; we cannot wash our dirty linens in public. If you have a family meeting in your house, do you go to the marketplace to start undressing yourselves?
I am a bona fide, committed, dedicated and faithful member of this party. I won’t open up the fields that happen.
It would be unpardonable for me to do that. If we have to appear before a constituted party committee, I will expose everything to them.
But if I love this party, it is not the public domain that we open up ourselves. That is why I don’t want to make any comments now. I am not a member of anything.
At the initial time I was there, I took sides because I was disgusted with what they did at the convention. If I tell you the role I played in going A or B, you will know.
But it’s not for me to say to the public. That was what angered me and when I got to the other side, and I saw what they were doing, I told them, to calm down.
If you are not going to calm down, I will come back. And I’m not a member of either of them. Never! That ceased a long time ago.
You were also part of those who committed the hara-kiri because we saw how you supported Wike and how you said Atiku was the problem. What has changed?
This is a misunderstanding. Let me now explain to you. At this age, on the eighth floor of life, do you think I will be involved with a load of nonsense? Something happened at that national convention and I was completely disgusted with what was going on.
I have said it often that I made my move based on the fundamentals that established this political party.
The founding fathers stated that they tinkered with the original concept in Nigeria because what disrupted the first and second republics was that the majority tribes were ruling and they were winning elections. The minority tribes were just pure onlookers. That couldn’t continue.
You cannot all be members of an organisation and then only one tribe will continuously be ruling you. That created so much mayhem and led to the coup, the civil war and all that.
When these founding fathers got together, because they had experienced the kind of management we were doing in Nigeria and the major issue is to bring all parties, all tribes to be members of this nation in the management of our country, they decided that let us divide Nigeria into six geopolitical zones.
So, you had the majority tribes, the minority tribes and they now came up with six top positions.
The President, the Vice President, the Senate President, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the National Chairman of the party that on any occasion, whether you are majority tribe or minority tribe, you will go home with one of these six. But what happened at our convention?
Number one, the presidential candidate went to one zone, the North. The national chairman of the party also went to the North. We said, no, it can’t happen like that.
That was the basis of the crisis in the party. I just didn’t jump ship and say, I was going to be with Wike or we are going to be with Atiku. I had meetings with Atiku. I had meetings with Iyorchia Ayu.
They disrupted the system, and how would I remain there? My greatgranduncle was the first politician in this country. On morality, I said, no, it cannot happen.
The coming election will be my last battle before I take my leave. Any external intervention apart from the people of Lagos, we will resist it… if we are going to decimate the party, so be it
And I’m still saying it. Eight years of presidential control by the North; for the next eight years, the presidential candidate must come from the South.
I was there one time when Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was leaving as president. We were four people, who sat at about 2.am, trying to do the resolution of the zoning. So, when you say, I was this, I was that, there was a reason.
Why did you stop supporting what Wike was fighting for then?
I am not supporting anybody and that’s what I’m explaining to you. Listen, I had a meeting with Atiku.
I spent six hours with Ayu in his house in Abuja. He didn’t do what is right and he was still insisting.
I said if you, Ayu, made a statement publicly that per adventure, the presidential candidate comes from the North, you will resign but when the presidential candidate emerged from the North, you refused to resign, what are you talking about.
He said he has four years. I went to his house to convince him. Then I called Atiku. I said look, talk to this your brother.
They are disrupting this system. That is not the way the founding fathers set it up. If we did that to you as southerners, would you accept it?
What is not good is not good, no matter where you belong. You must have the fear of God in whatever you are doing.
That was where I disagreed with them and I moved out. Then the Wike people came and said they were trying to resolve it. I joined the meeting; they made me a leader.
We sat down. In the end, when I saw it, they said now we have two presidential candidates from the South. At the meeting, they said that they believe that Bola Tinubu is the better person.
I said, if you go out of this meeting and you talk about it outside there, I will counter you in the open. You guys have no idea who this gentleman is. He had ruled my state.
We know his modus operandi. You don’t have any idea. That was where we parted. It’s not a matter of jumping ship and looking for laurels.
That is the is the truth. Go and find out. What am I looking for now that I will not be able to look at you in your face and tell you the truth?
How much faith do you have in the Tanimu Turaki committee to be able to put off the flame that has engulfed the PDP, and does he have your support?
Now, the important thing is this. The cases presented before the BoT was that UdeOkoye, the incoming national secretary had gone to the court to get a judgement. That is the bona fide national secretary. Okay.
Now, Anyanwu went to another Court of Appeal and the court stated that status quo ante bellum be sustained. Now, what the BoT chairman is saying is, let this issue be examined.
The legal issue, the status quo ante bellum stated by the second Court of Appeal; what is the interpretation? That is Turaki all is going to examine because he is a lawyer and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).
Anyanwu is saying that the status quo ante bellum established by the Court of Appeal is saying that the judgement at the lower court should be sustained.
But the status quo ante bellum interpreted by Ude-Okoye is that the judgement is not referring to the judgement at the lower court but the judgement of the Court of Appeal. Turaki is an established lawyer, so we expect him to be fair, to be just, and tell the truth.
That’s where we are now, which is the most sensible, approachable, and dedicated line of approach in this matter. If I want to tell you to analyze what Anyanwu did; it was absolutely despicable.
You wanted to contest for a governorship position, and it is the secretary and the national chairman who will normally sign for all candidates going to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). How can you do that and you are still contesting. So, too many things are wrong.
What is the future of the PDP and what is the guarantee that the PDP will be a winning party in 2027, particularly in Lagos State, where you the leader of the party?
Let me tell you that I’m happy that I have the opportunity today to state emphatically that the problem in Lagos is not something that I created.
There are too many hands and too many external factors that come into play here in Lagos.
I keep telling them, to allow everybody to hold on to his own house. You cannot know my house more than me. It started with Atiku’s quest to control here and there.
How can they know my house more than me? That has been the madness in Lagos and you saw that they have been working for Tinubu here in Lagos.
They are paying the price now and I told them that the coming election will be my last battle before I take my leave.
Any external intervention apart from the people of Lagos, we will resist it, we will prevent it and we will fight it if we are going to decimate the party, so be it.
They keep causing crises in the party and come around to blame Bode George; how could you blame me!