2019: Bode George charges PDP leadership to shun bickering, pettiness

FORMER Deputy National Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olabode George, has charged elders and leaders of the party to shun bickering, pettiness, jealousy and put the past behind them in order to secure victory for the party, come 2019.

Chief George, who is also the Atona Oodua, made the call on Friday in his office in Ikoyi area of the state, even as he declared that the South-West votes remained critical for anyone or party desiring to win the election and make it to Aso Villa, the seat of power in Abuja.

The PDP chieftain was reacting to a question concerning the recent visit to Lagos of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, and the observed lack of collaboration among party leaders in welcoming the PDP presidential candidate to the state.

George, while urging the party leadership to rally all together for unity of purpose ahead of next year’s poll, said Lagos was so strategic,  wondering why it was possible for anybody not to have ensured that the visit of the party’s presidential candidate to the state was giving adequate arrangements and enough publicity.

The party chieftain warned the leadership against repeating past mistakes particularly one under the former national chairman, Alhaji Adamu Muazu, during which he said that the South-West apex of PDP was sidelined in the presidential campaign of former President Goodluck Jonathan.

Chief George said the result, thereafter, was that the PDP lost the elections and became the opposition party, declaring, however,  that he remained a highly committed member of the party irrespective of whatever had occurred in the past and would still be same whether his name featured in any list of those to be involved in any campaigns.

“Let them know that without South-West nobody can win Aso Villa. Whether my name is there or not, it is irrelevant.

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“I hope I would be alive next time the man (Atiku) would be in Lagos. We would all be there. I am a Lagosian, we would mobilise all the youths in the state,” he said.

“We are not fighting from the government, but from the opposition. To defeat, you must have your house in order,” he warned.

On Mr Jimi Agbaje, the party’s governorship candidate in Lagos State, George assured that he was solidly behind him for the race, declaring that the misunderstanding between the duo had long been resolved.

He, however, tasked Agbaje to go ahead and rally other party elders and leaders behind him for next year March poll, saying a tree cannot make a forest.

“I am still supporting him,  but a tree cannot make a forest. He should go and rally others, and that is what he is doing now. The election is March next year, 24 hours is a lot of time in politics. In politics everybody is important. I believe this yuletide is for us to get back and strategise,” Chief George said.