Chief Bode George is a former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In this interview, he speaks on the resignation of Olajide Adediran, popularly known as Jandor from the party; the decisions of the Supreme Court to halt federal allocations to Rivers State and the return of Mudashiru Obasa as Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, among others, ANAYO EZUGWU writes
What do you have to say about Adediran’s claim of internal sabotage, antiparty activities and lack of discipline among PDP leaders in Lagos State?
My first two children are much older than him. It’s an insult to my person to answer him. He’s just growing up. My advice to him is to let him go and live a good life.
I would never take any insult from a little chap like that, saying all the things that are so incorrect, that are false and unjustifiable. So, I want to leave it like that. The party is not crazy. We have an organisation in this party.
He came through a highly respectable old man, one of our leaders, one of our former presidents and that’s how he was accepted to the party. But no matter what you do to a young person who is yet to learn the ropes, and you take him out to sea, to sail, you’ll be too sorry what he does.
So, I wish him the best of luck; good riddance to bad rubbish. I see it as an insult at my age to respond to the absolute nonsense he was talking about.
If you’re not responding directly to Jandor, there have been allegations of anti-party activities within the PDP, even at the national level. What will you be doing going forward to address all these issues?
I said that all this young man is saying is to cover up the conundrum he created, so I will not trade words with him. The party is not owned by an individual. We have a procedure; we have a process. And he said I was appointed vice chairman of a disciplinary committee. That’s absolute nonsense.
They appointed me to be a member of that panel, and I said I will not serve in that panel because I looked at the other members, and as far as the PDP is concerned, it’s like bringing the headmaster to come and serve under the prefect.
It’s not right. I rejected that appointment. So, for him to come and say I was vice chairman is a load of nonsense. We wish him well in his life; good riddance to bad rubbish.
He can roll up and see that we made a mistake in the party by listening to an elder who convinced us to accept him into the party and I want to apologize to the other members of the party.
So, for me to go back and be talking, it’s like I said, the principal of a school debating with the senior prefect of a school. It is an insult. I don’t want to talk about that.
The party is not crazy. I mean, the whole echelon, the whole hierarchy of the party looked at it and thought, and knew that he was just talking rubbish. So, I wish him the best of luck in life. I’m not going to get down and be discussing that kind of crap.
Mudashiru Obasa is back as the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly. What do you make of the drama that played out over the last few weeks in the state?
Most times, I say emphatically that the All Progressives Congress (APC) as a political party is a congregation of strange bedfellows.
I was shocked to read the comments that quoted the president, saying that he owns APC, and that they have no right to do whatever they wanted to do in Lagos without consulting him, and therefore they should go back and reinstate Obasa. Even if you are the leader of the party, there is room for consultation.
Lagos is the largest electoral state in this country, followed by Kano and Rivers states. Now, some people want to destabilise the two states
This is a complete rape on democracy. It’s an absolute audacious mendacity. I have never seen anything like this. It reminds me of what we need to do to ensure that democracy survives in this country; because the electoral process is shambolic.
Even though President Muhammadu Buhari ordered and paid for a new system, an electronic system, to handle the electoral process in this country, you could see the way we debase that system.
The same system we are using in Nigeria, Ghanaians adopted that system and used it effectively in their last election. Before the final results came out, the president and the party in government, accepted defeat. But right here, if they are not talking about glitches, they’ll be talking about getting fake results from the BVAS.
What is going on in Nigeria? That is why you have people come up and say: This is my party, I own it. Nigerian voters are the power base because everybody who is elected, whether as a member of the House of Assembly, member of the National Assembly, governor or even the president, derived power from the people.
Personalising of a party is absolute nonsense. We are going through the same issue, and I am pleading with all those who are managers of the current democratic practice to go back to the 1962 crisis in the Western Region. I was in secondary school when it started. That’s over 60- years ago.
The Western Region was doing so well then and I remember some politicians saying then that ‘whether you vote for us or you don’t vote for us, we have 51 bankers.’ in other words, they were ready to rig the election.
We went into a little crisis but before we knew it, it became a cancer and ended up in the civil war. The same thing happened in Ondo State between Papa Ajasin and Omoboriowo that led to the coup that took off President Shehu Shagari. The first one led to the coup, the counter-coup, and the civil war.
What is going on? Are we not going to learn from the pitfalls of the past and make sure that we respect human beings? We must respect the poor people who queue up to elect members of the parliament, governors, senators and the president.
We asked you to go there, manage the resources of the land for the benefit of the people, not the other way round. What happened in Lagos is absolute charade. Four people were against 36 people but someone said they should reverse their decision because the party belongs to him. Is that a political party? I can’t believe it.
We will remind the voters in the next election. We have all seen, we have heard, I hope Nigerians and the electorate see that as a lesson. Is this the kind of people you put as managers of your resources? Please don’t. Let’s think about it.
What do you make of allegation of corruption and abuse of office levelled against Obasa?
Once the chief executive of the party says it is my party, it is my business, if you don’t like the heat, get the hell out of the kitchen. If you don’t like the way I’m running the party, get out.
That’s what he’s saying, simpliciter. So, when you listen to people, you need to be careful because in life, it is only godliness and goodness that are investment that never fails. Is there any human being that will be alive and will not pass on someday?
Please, we are appealing to them, let’s do it well. Let us do what is just, what is right, what is equitable in the interest of the future generation. They levelled certain accusations against him. What has happened? Nothing! So, he’s back there with the full throttle.
They’ve given him all the security aides and all that. What will those people do? If you don’t like the heat, get out of the kitchen. If you don’t like what they are doing, let them go. Either leave the party, resign or go and join another political party that has a proper structure and respect for the rule of law.
That’s all. I mean, I don’t know what anyone would say if there is an order now overriding all their decisions. It means you just shut up. You are just a loading number. You are just there to show your presence, get your salary and go home. What do you tell your constituency?
You levelled allegations against this gentleman; he wasn’t even given any right to respond to them. Get him back there. So, it’s a charade. And I told you, yes, we have our problems in PDP too, but we are not as dissatisfied as this other political party.
With the drama that has played out; is this going to be the beginning of peace in the Lagos State House of Assembly, or is this just the beginning of some other drama?
The real taste of the pudding is when you eat it. They have shown that they don’t care about the common people, the people who stood on the que and voted for them. If they have any iota of regard or respect for those people, the will behave better. If you are accused of something, you defend yourself.
But if we got to the point where they said they are dissatisfied with your management style, then you stand down. But for the CEO to say, I own the party, and you didn’t consult me if you did that, let this fellow get back to that seat, what do you do.
Two things; you either keep quiet because you want to enjoy the largesse of being a member of the state Assembly, or you get to a point where you say enough is enough, I quit. Go back to your constituency and tell them. There are so many other political parties.
The believe is that all the parties are the same…
My party is not the same. We have a procedure; no individual owns the PDP. That is the battle we are fighting now. The founding fathers of our party made certain rules, certain procedures of how you can become A or B, how you can emerge as a presidential candidate, how you can emerge as a member of the House or Senate or whatever.
We’ve got procedures. The last time, they manipulated the system, and they were now getting off the track as regards the procedures laid down in our constitution. Section 7 subsection 3C is very explicit, very clear.
The last man who was president of this country came from the northern zone but suddenly, a member of our party, who is also from the northern zone said he was going to contest. We can’t say he cannot contest constitutionally.
He has a right to but we have a procedure. After eight years of the governance headed by somebody from the northern zone. automatically, for the next eight years, somebody from the southern zone must be president because of the way this country emerged. It’s not a natural country.
But those old men sat together and designed a concept where every Nigerian, whether you are from the majority tribe or minority tribe, there is time for you. That brings about oneness.
That brings about respectability, justice, equity and fairness in the running of our nation. It worked but because we manipulated that system at that time, we are still at a crossroad now. It’s an audacious mendacity. It has to stop and we will stop it. I was lucky, I was one of those people that those old men handed over the procedure of how to run a national political party.
We all accepted it and I will give everything in my life for that because my great-grand uncle was the first Nigerian politician. He served this nation, Papa Herbert Macaulay. He served this nation meritoriously, fighting for unity, fighting for oneness. He didn’t care whether you are Igbo, Hausa or Yoruba.
What happened in Lagos is absolute charade. Four people were against 36 people, but someone said they should reverse their decision because the party belongs to him
As long as you are a human being and you are created in the image of the Almighty God, you must love your neighbour as yourself. What you will not accept, don’t do to anybody What impact does the Supreme Court judgement on the Rivers State matter have on governance and delivery of services to the people? I’m not a lawyer; I’m an engineer by profession but I’ve read a lot.
I’m a student of history and I’ve been long in politics. Like I told you, I come from a political background. Yes, the Supreme Court gave judgement, I have no qualms about that. It gave a judgement that the process by which they ran the local government in Rivers State wasn’t right.
But for that judgement of the Supreme Court to add that all allocation and funds going to River State should be stopped, my goodness, where is humanity? Are you telling me that civil servants in Rivers should not get salaries? If you don’t give them their monthly salaries, how do they feed their families? How do they pay the school fees of their children?
How do they survive? Already, even those who are collecting the meagre salaries are shouting that, look, things are so difficult. They are hungry, and they are, therefore, very angry. If you cancel that election, what has it got to do with the price of milk? If you don’t give them their allocation, how will they pay workers? For God’s sake, there should be some humanism in this country.
Those people who wrote that judgement; if somebody now says they should not be paid their salaries, how will they survive? How will they feel? What does the issue of the election of the local government people have to do with those who are working there? If you don’t give them their allowances, how will they survive?
That is why I believe that every right-thinking Nigerian should think about this because the epicentre of the Nigeria’s income is River State. So, what happens to the people if they reverse back now to go back to their villages? There is no money. What will they do to all the oil terminals there? Please, let’s put on our thinking caps. Let us have regard and respect for fellow human beings. What kind of decision is that?
What has that got to do with the price of milk? How do you put a smile on the faces of such people? How will they feed with the meagre salary, and you have all these oil companies, they are going tapping all the natural resources that the Almighty gave them. So, I saw it as a complete falsity. You stopped it, yes, you have a right. You said it didn’t go through certain things; fine.
But to say they should not be paid their allowances is absolute nonsense. It’s a tripod that conflagrate this country. And we have to be careful. I cited the example of what happened during the 1962 crisis in the Western Region. It started like a little full stop but before we knew it, it engulfed the whole country. Is that what we want to repeat in the 21st century? Should the people suffer because some mistake was made? And then you have said, stop.
Please, we need to put humanism in our brains. We need to have respect and regard for these poor people. Even if there are rich people there, how much money can you spend from your pocket to be able to meet the needs of the common people? And the same people who go and queue up on election day, who say the governor has every right. Okay, you said he didn’t do this, he didn’t do that. He will correct all that and the procedure to do another election takes time.
Until that time, shouldn’t they get their allocation? I don’t remember the name of the judge who gave the order but he should put himself in the position of Rivers people. If you are told that you will not get your salary; how will you and your wife as well as your children feel? Let us put some sanity into this. And I said to you, goodness is the only investment in the world that never fails.
If we do not stick to goodness, in other words, good behaviour, love for your neighbour, respect for other human beings, we will never achieve anything in this country. So, I’m appealing to them. I don’t know how the National Judicial Council or the Chief Justice can wade into it. Think of the impact it will have, the negative impact on these common people. That’s my appeal.
I’m not talking about him making judgments about local government or no local government. The epicentre of our commercial and financial income is Rivers State. And look, politically, that’s where I am quite knowledgeable, Lagos is the largest electoral state in this country, followed by Kano and Rivers states. Now, some people want to destabilize the two states. What are you trying to portend? To set up another conflagration is taking us a long time. There is nation in the world that doesn’t have problems.
The day you don’t have any problem, that means you’ve gone to the other side of life, you are dead. So, perpetually, you will have problems but your ability to be able to sit, think and resolve the problems will be a measure of your commitment and loyalty to the environment and the people you are managing.
