Bode George, former deputy national chairman (south) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said that Nigeria would have experienced an upheaval if Atiku Abubakar was elected president in 2023.
Gatekeepers News reports that George said this while speaking during an individual review session on ‘The Morning Show’, a programme on Arise TV on Friday.
The politician said Nigerians didn’t want Abubakar, who hails from the north to succeed Muhammadu Buhari, another northerner.
He said, “If Atiku had won — I would have stayed in my house because I knew that for real in the future he would collapse. This country would never accept.”
“If he had won that election, you think this country would have been stable? Because somebody from the north (Buhari) had just finished eight years and our own norm is that after the eight years, the presidential candidate must come to the south.”
The politician alleged that the party’s zoning arrangement was manipulated to favour Abubakar.
He said, “The moment we interfered with it, manipulating the whole process to satisfy Atiku, that’s where the problem started. For us to pretend as if there was not a problem, we are just wasting time.”
Before PDP 2023 primary election took place, some party stakeholders, including a group of five Governors, had requested that presidential ticket be zoned to the south, in line with rotation system in the party’s constitution.
The agitation which was widely supported was because Buhari, a northerner from Katsina, was completing his second term in office.
Some members of PDP withdrew their support for Atiku after he won the presidential ticket.
Also, the PDP chieftain said the crisis in PDP was due to Abubakar’s nomination as the party’s flagbearer.
The politician also said he would not serve as a member of the party’s reconciliation committee.
Recall that George was among the members of the reconciliation committee members inaugurated by PDP earlier on Wednesday, to resolve the issue causing a dispute in the party.
Commenting on constitution of the committee, George said he cannot serve under Ikimi, who was chosen as the committee chairman, adding that belongs to a group of members dividing the party.
He said, “I can’t serve under him (Ikimi) because when did he join the party?”
“We know within ourselves the various groupings that are dividing the party. That’s what the party should sit down first and resolve.”
