By Abiola Olawale
A former Deputy National Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and one time military governor of Ondo State, Chief Olabode George, has explained the core issues behind the crisis bedevilling the PDP.
George, a member of the Board of Trustees of the PDP said the current internal rancour within the party is as a result of the refusal of past leaders to adhere to the constitution.
The PDP chieftain said several members of the party were not happy that the last presidential candidate of the party and the National Chairman of the party were from the same region heading into the 2023 General election.
Speaking further, George opined that for lasting peace to return, party stakeholders must undertake an unbiased post-mortem analysis of the immediate and remote causes of what led to the crisis before setting up a reconciliation committee.
He made this known while speaking with the press. He said: “There’s no chance in the world that the chairman of the party will come from the same zone as the president, 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 defeated,d, house?
“We could not prevent that from happening. And as we are now, there is no solid opposition to counter the lacklustre or non-seriousness of those in government. We are busy fighting ourselves.
“There’s a new concept recently from the Democratic Party in America by President Joe Biden. It’s time to go. You’ve been 40 years as a senator, eight years as Vice President, four years as president.
“You have made your mark in the world and going into a new election at 81, you are no longer as punchy as you are. Please, in the interest of their nation. Just please sit back.”
Speaking on events preceding the current crisis and the efforts made to reconcile feuding members, George said, “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,s, 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 people, for them to accept us? Because members of a political party are not the only electoral members who will vote.
“People are looking at you. They are watching you. How would I go and campaign, no, the Constitution is clear. And then, somehow, he emerged.
”And then we said, okay, fine. After a lot of discussion, bargaining and all that, we said, okay, 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.”
He added:”The pre-election, the proper election and post-election matters, we will discuss it, and after that, you will now be able to set up a committee to reconcile people.
“If you try to go for a competition and you lose, whether you win or lose, you must do a postmortem. There will be areas where you have made certain mistakes because air is human.
“People are just arguing in their various slots, insulting people, and I said, let’s look at all the sides. There are three major sides now. We can’t go to war, divided. We cannot. We cannot but take a look at what happened, who created this? Who did that to avoid the recurrence in the future.”
