A stalwart of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Bode George says Nigeria would have experienced a turmoil if Atiku Abubakar was elected president in 2023.
He spoke on Friday when he featured on ‘The Morning Show’, a programme on Arise TV.
Abubakar, who was PDP’s presidential candidate in the 2023 elections, lost the vote to Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
George stated that Nigerians would not have accepted a situation where Abubakar — who is from the north — succeeded Muhammadu Buhari, another northerner.
“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,” he said.
“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 former deputy national chairman (south) of the PDP alleged that the party’s zoning arrangement was “manipulated” to favour Abubakar.
“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,” George said.
Prior to the PDP primary election of 2023, some party stakeholders, including a group of five governors, had sought that the presidential ticket be zoned to the south, in consonance with the rotation system in the party’s constitution.
The agitation intensified because the then president, Muhammadu Buhari, a northerner from Katsina, was finishing his second term in office.
A number of members of the party withdrew their support for Atiku after he secured the presidential ticket.
The PDP chieftain, then blamed the crisis in the party on Abubakar’s nomination as the PDP’s flagbearer.
George added that he would not serve as a member of the party’s reconciliation committee.
On Wednesday, the PDP instituted a reconciliation committee to resolve the issues inside the party.
George was named in the 26-member committee that is chaired by Tom Ikimi, ex minister of foreign affairs.
Whilst talking about the constitution of the committee, George said he cannot serve under Ikimi, claiming that the committee chairman belongs to a group of members “dividing the party”.
“I can’t serve under him (Ikimi) because when did he join the party?” he asked.
“We know within ourselves the various groupings that are dividing the party. That’s what the party should sit down first and resolve.”