Bode George narrates how the PDP routed the AD in the 2003 elections in the Southwest
One of the most disputed assertions in Chief Bisi Akande’s controversial autobiography, My Participations, is his claim that Chief Olusegun Obasanjo used his office as President of Nigeria to throw five of the six Alliance for Democracy (AD) governors out of office in 2003.
President Muhammadu Buhari echoed the same claims at the public presentation of the book in Lagos on December 9, 2021.
Obasanjo has kept mum since then but, perhaps, he is not even the man to speak on the matter.
TheNiche in its tradition of going for the high stakes went after Chief Olabode George, who as the National Vice Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the time led the charge to find out the truth.
Did the PDP rig the AD out of office in the Southwest in 2003? He chuckles and says nothing could be farther from the truth.
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He said the AD governors were pretenders who were laying claim to being Awoists – desciples of the foremost Yoruba leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo – and the people saw through their subterfuge and threw them out of office.
“We whacked them in the 2003 polls and it was genuine. They were genuinely defeated,” the retired Naval Officer and former military governor of Ondo State, said.
He said it was because of his role in their ouster that they conspired to jail him.
But he boasted that they backed the wrong horse: “I am a sailor, like a sailor submarine, you can dive, go to a safe area on the depth of the water and then pop up again. They committed a hara-kiri. It was a convoluted conspiracy amongst them that Chief Bode George must be containerized and the container sealed.”
You may probably have heard Chief George talk about Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu before.
Well, he spoke about Tinubu in this interview. You will probably be wondering if there is anything new George will say about Tinubu.
The Answer is, a lot. These are samplers:
“Tinubu is a perfect description of Al Capone”
“When Tinubu came to Lagos, he came in yellow buses, now, he has two aircraft. One of them can fly from Lagos to New York non-stop. Where is Segun Osoba’s aircraft? Does he have any? He has served and he is still acceptable among his friends. Why is he not showing off looted stupendous wealth like this fellow? Have they ever seen a bullion van driving into Segun Osoba’s house on Election Day? Or that is also a lie? Segun knows and we all know because he grew up here. He went to school here, he has classmates here and if he starts to do that many of his classmates will pull him by his ears and say, are you crazy? We have ethos, we have character, and we have things we were taught during civic lessons. We don’t belong to Tinubu’s level.”
Why did Bode George talk about Chief Osoba? Find out when you read the interview.
Bode George insisted he was not kidding when he said he would go on exile if Tinubu becomes president in 2023. But he explains that the reason is because the country where Tinubu will be president will no longer be Nigeria.
“First, that country where Tinubu will be president will no longer be Nigeria. He would have turned it into a Tinubu enterprise – with his wife as the Senate President, his son as the Governor of Lagos State and his daughter as the Iyaloja General of the Federation.”
But he is confident that will never happen. In fact, he thinks running for the presidency will be Tinubu’s nemesis.
“If you, like a rat will go out and poke and poke and poke, a day will come when that catcher will hang you there. I am not the one pushing him to go to the national. It is nemesis.”
Bode George says he is not bothered about Tinubu and whatever he is doing with Lagos money and he explains:
“Do you know why I am not bothered? Someday, all those acquisitions, all those properties, whether he put them in his name or fictitious names, when the day of reckoning comes, the truth will be told.”
“We have a saying in Lagos that Lagos money no dey leave Lagos. Tinubu won’t carry nothing across the bridge to Iragbiji ooo. Lagos money, na here him de de ooo!”
Think you have heard enough?
Not yet. Wait until you read the interview. It is a mouthful. He spoke about the judge who jailed him and four others in October 2009 on a 163 count-charge of conspiracy, disobedience to lawful order, alleged inflation of contracts and contracts splitting while he was chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) board.
Only in TheNiche. We ask the hard questions. We get the right answers.
Keep a date with your inimitable online newspaper – www.thenicheng.com – where those that matter ventilate their views, on Monday, January 24, at 6.15 am when the interview will go live.
You can visit our YouTube Channel and watch the interview on TheNiche TV.
Don’t miss it. It is Chief Bode George at his polemic best