Former Deputy National Chairman (South-West) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Bode George, has expressed his willingness to work with President Bola Tinubu if he consults him on governance issues. Despite opposing Tinubu’s presidential ambition and criticizing the outcome of the presidential election that led to his inauguration, George stated that his feud with him is not personal, and that he is ready to work with him for the interest of the country, according to Leadership.
While fielding questions with journalists in his Ikoyi office, Lagos, George, a staunch critic of Tinubu, emphasized that he is open to working with him for the betterment of the country. He revealed that he disagreed with Tinubu’s “methodologies of governance” but indicated that he would not refuse to work with him for the interest of the country. “If he comes and says look, what do you feel about this, what do you feel about that, let’s work together in the interest of this country, why would I refuse? This nation also trained me,” he said.
George, who had previously stated that he would leave the country if Tinubu emerged as President, took a different approach to his disposition. He noted that the military trained him and that there is no part of the world that he has not been to, training and doing exercises. As such, he believes that he must put something back into the system that would positively impact the younger generation and put a smile on their faces.
On the prolonged crisis in PDP, George stated that the disagreements on the principle of zoning during the campaign for the presidency “landed the party in a deck”. He noted that the country was divided into six geo-political zones, with each zone seeking out six top positions in Nigeria. According to him, each zone would go home with one position or the other, and after eight years, all the positions in the north would come to the south so that the issue of the majority perpetually getting the goodies and the minority just being onlookers would be resolved.
George lamented that he had not seen any better system, pointing out that when APC first came into power, they said that they did not believe in zoning and that they were not going to do zoning. However, he noted that they eventually did zoning, with the President from the North, the Vice President from the South-West, the Speaker from the North-East, and the Senate President from the North-Central.
He concluded that the major problem that the PDP faced was discountenancing the South-West and not including them in their calculation. Despite pointing this out to the party, they were asked to come back after the elections. However, George noted that they have seen the consequences of this decision.
