*’I pray PDP does not sink like ANPP’
A former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olabode George, has warned that the ship of the party may go down like the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) unless something is done urgently to review what went wrong in the 2023 general elections.
George, who spoke in Lagos, said PDP must set up a committee now to visit each state and come up with a report to really know what happened and learn.
According to George, the major issue plaguing the PDP is that the party has altered the zoning arrangements by the foundation fathers.
“Even the way we organised our primary election is very unique. Whereas in the APC, it’s the godfather that determines who gets what. We must go back to the basis. A divided house is a defeated house.”
Speaking on the Government of National Unity (GNU), he said PDP elders will determine that, not individuals taking decisions on their own to join the APC-led administration at the centre.
He said: “When the former President Olusegun Obasanjo won in 1999, he opened the participation to all political parties, not an individual.
“Nyesom Wike (FCT Minister) said he wrote a letter to the PDP before accepting to be a minister under the APC government. You can’t be a landlord, and because your house is leaking, you went to rent a house instead of you to correct it. The day the landlord asks you to quit, you’ll have nowhere to go. We have to discuss and resolve all these issues. The North had eight years under President Muhammadu Buhari, so the South must also have eight years.”
George, who maintained that sharing money is not the best way to alleviate poverty, insisted that the former Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Sadiya Farouk, must be brought back to account for how the billions she collected was distributed.
He also said President Bola Tinubu is heading towards the same direction by appointing another woman to the same ministry.
He, however, warned that Tinubu must act fast to alleviate the poverty in the land.
George, however, said that what he owed Tinubu in the next four years is to keep him and his team on their toes to ensure that the right things are done.
On how to alleviate the acute poverty in the land, George said: “There are many ways to alleviate people’s suffering, not by distributing cash. The president and his team must come up with a good method of reaching the people to alleviate their poverty. There is so much hardship in the land that they must do something fast because people are suffering.
“What I owe Tinubu now is that this nation must survive . Our responsibility as opposition party is to put them on their toes. When I heard about some items in the supplementary budget recently; N1.5bn to buy cars for the First Lady, N4bn to renovate Dodan Baracks, N5bn for presidential yatch, haba! Why should that be our priority now? Look at the squalor in the land. They showed some pupils recently in their classroom, no roof on their heads.
“I don’t know the voodoo economist in the Villa advising Tinubu. We must have a solid opposition to put them on their toes. As long as I’m alive, in the next four years, that will be our role.”
