Asiwaju Tinubu has begged me. Tinubu is my friend now; we don’t quarrel again. —Bode George Former Deputy National Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olabode George, in this interview with newsmen, speaks on the race for PDP’s governorship ticket in Lagos, criteria to be adopted in choosing the candidate of the party, among other issues. WE learnt that President Goodluck Jonathan has advised the PDP leadership to choose governorship a candidate that will be acceptable to the public and even the opposition in Lagos. As a leader of the party in the state. You are said to have a preferred candidate for the position of governor? The issue at stake is of importance to the future because it is about those who will manage the resources of the state to the benefit of the people. It is very apt and I am happy that you are here to ask such question. I will answer it exactly the way the president answered his own when he came to visit us in Lagos. I think it was Senator Bucknor-Akerele who asked the same pertinent question. She said to the president: ‘Mr President, I am told that you have a preferred candidate.’ President Jonathan said, ‘no, I don’t have any preferred candidate. But everywhere I went, I heard one name, to my left, right, centre and even back.’ He also said that some of his friends outside were mentioning the same name. In this game, all members of the party, as a leader, are your children. But, I come from a profession that, when you look at your boss, you don’t start creating your own wakes. Politics and military operation are similar although they are not completely the same. You watch the wakes of your oga and you fall in line. The president said he didn’t have any preferred candidate, but if there is one name that is reverberating all over the place, including the other side, that kind of person will also be his own preferred candidate. Because it is a lot of money to get the forms for the aspirants. He said they should tarry and be careful and that they should go into serious retrospection and do a deep-seated thinking not to waste their money. As a naval officer, I will say don’t swim against the tide, that is putting it in a milder form. He said they should try and work together. For me, that was purely advisory. The voice of your Papa, when he is advising you, must not be thrown into the dustbin. Listen to the voice of your leader and elders. I told many of them, this game is not just about us alone doing election; it has a link all the way; even Saturday ward congresses, will have an effect on the national election. So, the first step is very important and you watch your leaderm like we say in politics. The leaders are also having meetings with the aspirants, those that we can convince. Let’s reduce the number because N12 million is a big money and is non-refundable. President Jonathan said he would still come back and see how best we are able to manage the reduction of the aspirants. Let the aspirants discuss among themselves and let the elders do their best. And that he will soon come back is because Lagos is so strategic for the government of this country. Lagos is the economic nerve centre of Nigeria and that of West Africa. So, who governs Lagos should not just be the business of the Lagosians alone, it has to be the business of the whole nation. All eyes are on Lagos. How many people is the PDP leadership talking to in this regard? Since the president left after he advised the aspirants, by my reckoning, we have about seven or eight who came up. But, now we had about three or a maximum of four who are still in the race. We know that the elders are still meeting and we want people to look at it dispassionately and you don’t force it down on them. We learnt that you are backing Mr Jimi Agbaje and that Obanikoro said he has the support of the president. It seems we are having two horse races. There is no amount of clothing that a young person can have, he will never have as many rags as an old man. You don’t buy that, you live through it. When a child goes to the bush to cut the tree, it is the old man that will know where it will fall. As I said, this is the season of rumours; they can flex muscles. That Obanikoro resigned because the president endorsed him, is the greatest lie. The president, who came and made the statement I told you, is still very much alive. Are you saying that it is the president that said the Minister of State for Education, Nysome Wike should resign because he has endorsed him, who signed the papers? Was it the president that signed the paper? I have defined the type of candidate that we should have. That person should be a man with sound pedigree, someone you can trace his lineage, and with sound education, not Toronto or Chicago; a man who has shown semblance of top management level capability, who is respectable, responsible and acceptable and manageable; and also marketable to all the three tiers of existence- top executives, big guys, the medium level and low-level people. These are the parameters we will adopt to put everybody on the same scale. He, who comes to equity, must come with very clean hands. If you have any blemish in your closet, just ease yourself out quietly. Nobody will come and cover up here. We will expose all of them to the media. You will fire questions at them and check out on them. That is the kind of person we want to put forward because I remember that in 2007, some of these guys ran away from the Election Petition Tribunal; they couldn’t attend the Tribunal because of the tons of blemish they had in their closets. You can’t pull wool all over our eye. To answer your question, President Jonathan didn’t endorse anybody. If you watch him that day when he was giving a valedictory speech at the Federal Executive Council meeting, he said, ‘Let me advise those who want to run, think deeply, look at it dispassionately, you still have room between now and Monday to submit.’ So if he is endorsing anybody, he would say, ‘well done my ministers, you have done well, go.’ Was that what he said? So, who is lying now? Like I said, this is the season for lies, rumours. Some have even said Chief Bode George has endorsed this one. The same thing is on the street of Lagos and that I have carried Koro (Obanikoro) on my ‘head’. But, I said I can’t endorse anybody; the people will endorse who they want very soon, that is not my job, I am not an emperor. Among those that have come out as aspirants, does any of them possess the qualities you have listed? Oh yes. Is the party going to set up a committee to screen the aspirants? Yes, the first thing is that you get the form and fill it. They will appear before a screening committee and the qualities I mentioned earlier are the things they will look at. Even if they go try to cover uo anything concerning them, will the media cover them? They will do screening thorough because the INEC rules are very clear. The opposition too is waiting for you to bring a wrong man so that they can have an easy win. When you go through the screening process, there will be an appeal also. Then we can now go for the real thing. And what I have said now includes those vying for the seats in the State House of Assembly, House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as governorship and the presidency. There is a clamour for a Christian governor in Lagos State in 2015. Will your party be toeing this line and zone its governorship to a particular area in the state? The beauty of Lagos State is that you will find people whose parents come from Epe or Ikorodu and have lived on the West Senatorial district for years, and have established themselves there. Lagos is big in population but it is very compact. What are you zoning. The fluidity of the people is not as serious as if you go to the next state, Ogun. In Ogun, the Yewa people are Yewa; the Ijebus are Ijebus and the Egbas are the Egbas, well defined there. Then you go to Ogbomosho, Oke Ogun and then you come to Ibarapa area. These areas are well defined. But, Lagos is a melting point, that is the summary of it all. In the last voter registration exercise, Lagos had 5.8 million registered voters. That is the highest in the country. If you look at just the indigenes, how many? But, the population is high because it is the commercial nerve centre of the country. This story about zoning will just be getting into trouble. Late Sir Micheal Otedola had ruled, he was an Epe man, Jakande ruled, he is from Lagos Island, Bola Tinubu had ruled (laughs). Tinubu is my friend now; we don’t quarrel again. He has apologised to me publicly at Adamasingba in Ibadan during the burial of Azeez Arisekola Alao. He said he was sorry and I said it was all over. But I thank God I didn’t die in prison. You have not answered the question on religion. Ideally, it should never be a problem because hardly would you find a family in Lagos that either does not belong to the Christian, the Muslim or even the traditional religion. My immediate older sister is an Alhaja, married to a Muslim and then she converted. I have a younger brother, whose wife originally was a Muslim. Today she is a pastor. So ideally, it should not be an issue. For 16 years, we have had a Muslim sect in governance, I don’t know where it came from, but like I said, vox populi. You must take cognance in your tactical table of the arrangement because they would vote: the Pentecostal, the Catholic, tons and tons of them. If they are demanding for it, whatever it takes, you follow the wakes; don’t swim against the tide because we didn’t start it. The Emperor in Bourdillion too quickly anointed somebody. Akin Ambode’s father was a Cherubim and Seraphim member. It is just like what the Number one citizen in the land was advising when he came to Lagos. He said anywhere he goes, this is the name he is hearing and if you remain deaf to it, you remain deaf to it to your detriment. So if they said that is what they want, everybody will comply. Though it is not like a Berlin Wall, it is a strong parametre in the equation, and we must follow it if we want to win the minds of the people. Why is your party desperate to win Lagos? The people of Lagos are desperately in need of a new government. They want a change, 16 years on a bridge that has led to nowhere. It is in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, you can’t go forward, and you can’t jump off. Look at the whole belt of Lekki, the amount of money you pay on toll. Governance is about easing the pressure on the people but they have turned it into inflicting more pains on the people. People are tired and they need a change. How will the PDP handle the crisis that always follows the conclusion of its primaries that thwarted its efforts to succeed in Lagos in the past? Because the tempo rises towards election, we have a management methodology of easing this. This time around, attributes, extraneous forces that used to destabilise Lagos, we will make sure that they are clipped. When you have people, who think that they know your house more than you do, how can they solve the problem in your house? Simply put, you sit and plan, but they will do some counter-planning and manipulate the process and somehow prop up some ‘unpopular’ candidates. That is it, but you can’t know my house more than me. What we are doing now is to avoid this pitfall and ensure that such extraneous forces that never served the interest of the party and of the people of Lagos State are not allowed to exist.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 17:06:37 +0000
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