*Explains how and why Tinubu still maintains firm grip on Lagos politics
*Says siege on National Assembly by DSS operatives, an act of treason
As a soldier and a politician, Chief Olabode Ibiyinka George has seen it all. He rose to the rank of Commodore in the Nigerian Navy and in the days the military held sway, he became military governor of Ondo State.
As a politician, he preferred to serve in the party rather than being in government and subsequently became the national vice-chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Southwest as well as the deputy chairman, South. He was also Chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA).
In this exclusive interview with TheNiche, Chief George fielded questions from Ikechukwu Amaechi, Daniel Kanu and Ishaya Ibrahim on the state of the nation.
Nigeria seems to be in crisis particularly with the recent siege on the National Assembly by armed Department of State Services (DSS) operatives. What do you make of the state of the nation?
It is very disturbing. Like the Americans will say, the red light has started blinking. It is very worrisome. Initially I thought that it was another political rascality. But when the details started coming out, I said to myself, this can’t be swept under the carpet.
Why?
There are three equal arms of government – Executive, Judiciary and Legislature. That is what the Constitution says. Any disturbance of the tripod is a disturbance for everybody. Whatever was in the mind of the people who decided to surround the National Assembly, it was treason. You surrounded the place and prevented the people from going in.
As if these issues of killings are not enough, when everybody was thinking we must resolve them, reorganize the military, buy more ammunitions, suddenly you found that one arm of government has been surrounded.
And you also know there was a time judges were arrested.
The three arms of government are independent and equal. If there is anything any agency of government notices about the judiciary, there is a National Judicial Council (NJC) that must first be informed. But to go to a judge’s house for arrest without court order, so who’s safe?
Like Nigerians are shouting now, if they had cried out at that time, this would not have occurred. You are subjugating an arm of government.
A sitting Justice of the Supreme Court, not retired, under whatever guise, was landed before a tribunal, and we all kept quiet.
Let every arm of government take care of its own problems. They are independent. You don’t have a supervisor amongst them. There must be balancing, so that no one arm will run away with absolute power. I want to believe that we must go back to basic civics from primary school to teach Nigerians their duties to their neighbour, to their country.
Suddenly, the issues of murder and assassinations took the back seat. What is even more disturbing is the fact that, yes there was an announcement from the office of the Vice President, but the way they are handling it is not good.
Suddenly one arm of government was disturbed, let me put it mildly like that, once they were able to foil it, there should have been a broadcast even if it is for five minutes, there should have been broadcast to reassure the international community, to assure Nigerians that all is well. That this is what happened. That some misguided people did this. That they were investigating it.
We are part of the global community. The European Union fired a warning shot. The Americans fired a warning shot. The British also fired a warning shot.
What did our government tell us? Just a statement from the office of the Vice President and they are treating it as if it was just one of those things? A broadcast for just five minutes so that others can know that this kind of thing must not be repeated.
Is it possible that the fired DG DSS, Lawal Daura, acted all alone?
I am not looking at the crystal ball. As soon as the story broke, my political adviser alerted me. I read it and my gut reaction was: Can this be true?
Now, who is involved? Of course, the government says it is investigating. But they must tell Nigerians, because all kinds of rumours are going on that he (Daura) blasted the Vice President, making him look as if he had no nerves, that the chief of staff was involved, that he was not involved. Adams Oshiomhole said he was not part of it. We must get to the bottom of this. Somebody must be punished so that in future it will not happen again.
Daura is now on the hot seat and he must explain to Nigerians what happened. Did he just wake up from the wrong side of his bed and decided to shut down the National Assembly?
That is an arm of government. You think some crazy fellow, as if he is drunk, would go and surround the presidential Vila? It is punishable.
As you observed, there are so many conspiracy theories. The All Progressives Congress (APC) which initially condemned the siege on Tuesday, issued another statement on Wednesday, saying that they had investigated and found out that it was a collusion between the Senate President, Bukola Saraki and Daura. They claimed that DSS personnel actually saved the day because the PDP wanted to overrun the National Assembly. Isn’t that narrative plausible?
That statement is like the statement of somebody who just left the psychiatric hospital. Are you kidding with Nigerians? You can see the way they are treating Nigerians. How can they conceptualise this kind of statement? They are turning and spinning. Are these people really worthy enough to manage this country?
That the security agents are colluding with the PDP. To do what? Oshiomhole is now trying to dance out of the mess. This is not a labour organisation. This is Nigeria. This is the party in government, and he is now looking for more lies. You see, the more they lie, the more they get exposed. It is better they shut up.
And the government must make a broadcast and explain to the nation what really happened. And the outcome of this may be an issue for election because it is a matter of trust. If you came to us and say vote for me, I will manage the resources of this country on your behalf for your benefit, and what you are seeing are people lying, spinning, and fake news all over the place. Of course, fake news is created by fake people.
Where are all those supporters, the professors and all those who used to shout? Are they condemning this siege? Where is my good aburo (younger brother), Femi Falana? What I am saying is simple, let them have a public enquiry. Whether it is a single man that decided to do it because he had all the men, he could deploy them, or it was a consortium of their leaders, we want to know.
Do you think this crisis is big enough for the president to cut short his vacation?
I believe that since they immediately arrested it, and there is a man who is acting …. Acting President of Nigeria, that is not a joke. If he had the nerves to ask that Daura be relieved of his position, he should have the nerves to talk to Nigerians and to reassure us that all is well and that they are setting up an enquiry. This is what must happen before we can put it on the bookshelf of history.
The way it is done now, it is like we are a banana republic. We ought to assure all our investors who have pumped in so much money here that the country is okay. Why are they not talking? If it had continued unabated, then the president would have to come back here immediately.
You were a military officer. How do you view what happened? Some people say it was a coup, a treasonable act. Do you agree?
Legally, it was an act of treason. They surrounded the National Assembly; the legislators were not allowed to move freely until there was an order to move those boys out of there.
In the military, apart from the martial music, once you surround the official residence of the president, or the parliament, what do you think you have done? You have violated a law. And this one, you are preventing effective operations of the legislative arm of government. What do they call that? Three equal arms of government, and the crafting fathers of the constitution knew that the three-legged body is a stable platform. Once you remove one leg, it becomes unstable.
What do you think Nigerians should do if this issue is swept under the carpet?
Very simple. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know this. Every four years, people in government and in opposition must go back to renew their mandate with the people.
So, it is a time to ask, have they performed according to your expectation? If they have, you ask yourself on the day you want to vote, am I satisfied with their performance? Not because they are inducing or giving you money. If you are satisfied, you vote for them. If you are not satisfied, vote for another party. That solution has never failed anywhere in the world. Have they met your expectations, because as you make your bed, so you lie on it?
Another four years will soon come by. We were there for 16 years, we got to the cruising level, put the aircraft on autopilot and said for 60 years we would control Nigeria. Then we hit a storm. We were lucky we didn’t crash. We survived the storm because we would have crashed out. So, we went back to our drawing board and did our homework. We have seen our failings, we forgot that the people sent us there.
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is a brand new party now. We have adopted a new strategy and we must go back and convince the electorate that we are better off now. We cannot pretend we never made any mistake. It is not like what APC is doing now, the lies told by the Lai Mohammeds of this world and Oshiomhole with his spins.
But some Nigerians, as the Catholics would say, think that the sins committed by the PDP in 16 years were mortal sins beyond pardon. Why would they trust PDP again?
Like I said, mistakes were made under PDP. But those mistakes were not as grievous as the ones APC is making now. Let Nigerians compare and contrast. Ask yourself, are you better off today than before. Are you better off in terms of the safety of lives and property, good educational system for your children, availability of employment for anyone who wants to get a job? What about the investors? Is the environment healthy enough for them to bring their money to invest? What about agriculture which is the mainstay of the economy, what are APC’s agricultural policies like? What about economic indices? Are they healthy or they are in hell?
We accepted that we made certain mistakes. We have done a postmortem analysis, and we have found out that we erred in some ways. And we have apologized. And to err is human, to forgive is divine.
As an electorate, if you are better off now than before, vote for APC. If you are not, why can’t you reinvent that period when you were better? It is normal.
Like I said, we got to the cruising level and put the aircraft on autopilot and went to sleep, as if the system will work perfectly without an input here and there. Then we hit a storm. Nigerians said they were tired, they wanted change. Okay, is this a real change for their betterment or a change for hell?
There is this tag of corruption which seems to have stuck with the PDP. How can the party convince Nigerians otherwise?
It is laughable. Is it everybody in the PDP that was corrupt in terms of the money they have in their accounts? We know of some people who brazenly, as if slapping our faces on daily basis, display wealth in my state here – Lagos. Are they from the outer space. The kind of money they throw around calls for questions.
Look at the election in Ekiti State. The kind of money they were paying the delegates first, then the electorate. I was going to call my junior brother Ibrahim Magu to ask if he travelled. Where did these people get all that money from?
Another madness is going on now in Osun State. Very frightening. The lust for money is the beginning of hell. The kind of properties they are acquiring, the kind of money they are throwing around, where did they get them from? Are they members of the PDP?
Somebody has a private aircraft and you don’t know what factory he has and what business he is doing to make all that money.
For instance in Lagos State, some people set up companies that are collecting the internally generated revenue. We have one called Alpha Beta company which is still collecting money on behalf of my state where the minimum generated on monthly basis is almost N50 billion. That goes into somebody’s personal account.
Just calculate the amount of interest the banks will be paying on daily basis, then at the end of the month, he collects 10 to 12 per cent of that money as his own fees. There is no corruption there?
Like I said, what is good for the goose, is also good for the gander. Don’t direct your searchlight only on the PDP. A thief is a thief and there are so many of these characters in the other party. Some, if they are accused, they change ship, become members of the APC. That is the covering shade. Join the APC and we will forgive you. Nigerians are watching.
I am talking not on a partisan basis; I am talking as a concerned Nigerian. He who comes to equity, must come with clean hands. If you want to clean up the stable, no half measures.
What do you make of the political realignments, the back and forth.
Let me thank you for that question and to state emphatically that in any developed nation, like in America, France, Britain, Germany and all that, they have defined their political parties based on ideologies. You are either conservative or liberal or in-between.
All our political parties in Nigeria are not based on ideologies. All they talk about is providing basic democratic dividends to the people.
When these people left our party in 2014, they were angry. They had certain objections in terms of the style of management. They complained and the management couldn’t resolve the crisis and they headed out. I remember what I said at the national convention when those governors and lawmakers walked away. I looked at them and said they were making a serious mistake because if you are a landlord and your house is leaking, is it logical to abandon your house and go and be a tenant?
You will stay in your house and repair it. That was my thought. Because you headed out to a field that is not known, remember it was a congregation of strange fellows, it is a contraption. You had the ACN, you had the ANPP, you had the CPC, you had APGA. What happened? The moment they came to government, to your tents oh Israel! All of them went back to their culture, the norms, what they were used to.
Now, the center cannot hold, what has become of the union? The moment they had new elections coming, the people who came in, lost control of their constituencies. They don’t have any member in the party’s executive committee and if you are a politician and you have no member there, you are finished.
So, rather than get wasted there, they said, let me go back to where I am coming from, at least they know that I have been part of the building, I have been part of the structure. So, they just came back home.
The lack of democratic practice in APC made those people to come back to a party that is synonymous with democracy. You see, the founding fathers of the PDP went an extra mile. I have challenged my brothers in the APC that their party is not national. They brought all the regional/tribal parties together. Ours, we laid the foundation of our party at the heartland of the centre of Nigeria. And it has super, solid, tap root. That was why when we hit the storm, we didn’t crash out. We are now the Iroko tree. And you know Iroko tree is Iroko tree because it has weathered a lot of storms in the forest.
So, we are happy that they are back. We are happy that they can add value. Whatever they think made them to leave, a lot has been corrected. They will now come back with their experiences because they went from frying pan to fire.
You saw the way they were received? All of us have now learnt a lesson, that a divided house is a defeated house.
But some other people are also leaving the PDP for APC like the Senate Minority leader, the former Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Godswill Akpabio.
Talking about the gentleman, the former governor of Akwa Ibom State who headed to the other side, I retired as a Commodore in the Navy, a Master Mariner. You don’t swim against the tide. It is the first law because when the tide is flowing in this direction, and you decide to flow in the other direction, you won’t swim for long before you get tired and sink. While the influx was coming to the PDP, you decided to head out. There must be something that was driving him. I don’t know.
He said that the leader of the party is stubborn, he doesn’t listen. I just looked at him because he was one of the men, you know he is a gifted orator. He was talking about uncommon transformation. So, where is the uncommon transformation now that he has headed to the jungle?
I believe he should take a deep breath, reevaluate what he is doing because Akwa Ibom is a one-party state. To me, if you swim against the tide, it won’t be long before you go down.
Some Nigerians believe that the biggest challenge PDP will have is its choice of a presidential candidate.
That is going to be the measure of our capacity to manage ourselves. I said to people, it is an opportunity for us to convince Nigerians that we will be better managers. Now, a sudden inflow of people. How do you manage the hot heads, the cool heads? How do you get everybody together? We have our own laws, don’t create your own laws. Anything outside that constitution, don’t try it. Don’t think that you can hijack the party and you become like an emperor. Let us be seen to be fair and just. If people see that you are just and fair, why will they fight?
Abraham Lincoln, the greatest American president who united the north and south after American civil war contested 11 times. It was on the eleventh time that he won the presidency. What did he do? He won the war that brought the south and the north together. It is his definition of democracy that still resonates with the world today.
He didn’t last long. But he ran the race faithfully. He played his part positively. When the people decide that this is the man they want and not you, it doesn’t mean you should start running around because you didn’t get it. No! I regard it as being cheap. Stay on there. The almighty says in your journey of life, you go through the trough once in a while. But if you trust him, you will pop out on the highway of triumph.
Like my own experience in this short run of political activities. I come from a solid background. My great grandfather was Herbert Macaulay from my mother’s side. The number one politician from this country. Papa was in and out of jail fighting the British. You know what the British did to him eventually, on Marina, the present location of post office building, that was where his house was. They demolished it in trying to totally obliterate him because he was a torn in their flesh.
But I want to quote for you the words of Mandela, the last book he wrote. He said the prison cell for politicians is special training ground because you will see in that your cell your life history. The things you have done badly, intentionally badly, and things you have done right. That your conscience will show it to you.
So, it is a college where you learn. I said this to President Jonathan in one of our meetings. And he said Chief are you saying all of us should go to prison? I said it is a rare privilege. If you go there, you graduate from there, you are a better human spirit because you would have seen the other side. You would have seeing that life is transient. No matter all the citadel you are building, this mansion, the day you pack up and you go, even if they open your hand and put few dollars there, your hand will open up and throw it back. So, what is it? What are we looking for? That service to mankind, those areas will never be forgotten.
With the experience we had with the Obasanjo presidency and what we are seeing now under Buhari, there are some Nigerians that say retired military officers can never truly be democrats and, therefore, should not be trusted with political power in a democracy.
If I say that didn’t cross my mind when the generals were firing salvos from opposite sides, I will be lying. That was dangerous because of this perception. We, by training, are better than any average civilian in terms of service to nation because right from the day you entered, it is service. Take the American government, you know how many of their presidents that were ex-generals. Go to Britain, go to anywhere, they served. So, it is an advantage. Not a disadvantage.
Yes, in the military, depending on the person’s rank, you can define his behavioural pattern. In the civilian life, the behaviour ranges from zero to infinity. So, you need to build yourself.
General Obasanjo did his best. General Buhari is also doing his utmost best. But we have also had other civilian presidents who never saw the gate of the military establishment. So, it depends on individual personalities.
The military in itself should be an added advantage. You are looking at me and thinking these soldiers have no respect for democracy. But we are taught to obey a constituted authority. I went to the United States War College. One of the subjects is you subject yourself to the government in power. That is one of the things you learn.
Some people say PDP in Lagos is dead. Why are you people finding it difficult to do something with PDP in Lagos?
It is not that PDP in Lagos is dead. It is a combination of so many parameters. We are not dead. We have our own issues. What I have discovered is that, this guy, the Emperor of Lagos.
Who is that person sir?
When you go to Bourdilion Street (laughter), you will find out. He decides who should sit down, who should go to toilet, who should go to the house.
Now, some of their people have started to challenge that kind of behaviour. On our part, because of the poverty level, sometimes those who will hover around you, before you know it they have gone over there to sell your programmes and collect money.
Imagine a scenario where the total amount of the internally generated revenue of Lagos State is N50 billion. Now, that person collects between 10 per cent and 12 per cent of that money every 30 days. Just imagine that. Sitting in his house and doing nothing, he gets N5 billion every 30 days. So, he has a stupendous amount of money to throw around.
Now, people come to you with highfaluting noises. They tell you there is nothing they cannot deliver. They collect money to be governorship candidates. They disappear as soon as the money get into their hands.
I am not a young man anymore. I was a governor when I was 42. Now I am in my mid-70s. Am I going to now say I want to contest? There is nothing that has a beginning that will not have an end. Empires rise, empires fall. We will continue to fight.
I am beginning now to do a proper x-ray, looking at people not only at the outside, but through them to know who they truly are. We want to give the ticket to a committed, loyal party man.
I say without any equivocation that this young man who is there now – Akinwunmi Ambode – he has raised the stake of performance, especially in infrastructure. But we have people who will do better than him. But you can’t be everywhere. We need people who will stay at the polling stations and not wait for the stipends that will come from the Emperor.
Does it not boil down to the fact that the so-called Emperor is a better political strategist than all of you put together?
If we have access to that kind of money, we will utilize it far better. Like I said to you, they don’t practice democracy there – Lagos APC. He decides who goes to A or B. We don’t do that in Lagos PDP. We compete. There were mistakes in the past. We handed election money to some characters. Where are those characters now? They are back with Bola (Tinubu). They came from Bola. When we were saying be careful, nobody listened.
They collected all the money for election and they disappeared. Now that we are in opposition, that will not happen again. We will be fair, we will be just, we will give everybody level plain field. And the people of Lagos will have to play their part. The electorate decide elections.
He is not a better strategist.
Yes, he has a stupendous amount of money which he did not generate by himself. He is using Lagos treasury. And, yet, he is the saint.
We had the real Omoluabi of Lagos, Funsho Williams. He defeated him. Even the last chap, Jimi Agbaje, we worked so hard because people needed a change. We won. By the time we got to Alimosho, our people were not in the polling stations. They were not at the collation centres.
Alimosho is the largest local government. In fact, the electoral figures of Alimosho are higher than many states in the South West. By the time the result came from Alimosho, it was bad.
Then, who are you to blame? What happened to our people? So, it has to be deliberate commitment and total loyalty to the system. And it is not unsurmountable. It is hard work.
Those who think that PDP is dead, we had a minor crisis which hit us recently. We decided to share the executive positions of the party on 65/35 per cent basis. The 65 per cent was for those who were with the Makarfi faction. You remember the Makarfi/Ali Modu- Sheriff factions?
Those who were with sheriff, they said we should try and accommodate them. They are in the minority here. So, they were to take 35 percent of the positions. The state chairman of the party came through the 65 per cent. Immediately he got there, he now turned logic upside down. He now had an inverted pyramid. The minority are now more.
He was installing and inaugurating illegal executive committees. We said this would lead to unmanageable crisis. The national warned, we advised, he came to see me in London around December. I said go and meet the elders because we didn’t do congress. It was an agreement to have peace. And he left. He met the elders and totally rejected this position of managing the issues. He was inaugurating people which created friction. And it was in the course of this that we lost our finest local government chairman. That is already a police matter. I won’t discuss that. That was the kind of lunacy that engulfed the party. We are trying to build it, refashion it. You can’t but have this kind of crisis when you have this kind of characters.
You have reconciled with your friend Obasanjo. Is it just political reconciliation so that you achieve the end result of changing the government in 2019?
No. No. It is much deeper than that. Baba (Obasanjo) was a father, he was a leader, and he is a very brilliant man. In fact, anybody who has served at that level as the president of this country, must have something special.
I believe we should tap from their knowledge for the young generation. I worked closely with Baba. I met Baba through his late wife, Stella, who was my age group, my contemporary. I was in self-exile at that time when he came to London. Some people were coming to ask him to contest for election. I said don’t listen to them. When they left, I kept saying, but who could take the ship of state at this time? You know the whole thing was just wobbling and General Abdulsalami Abubakar was trying to get the military quickly back to the barracks. So, on their next visit, I said Baba, those who came to you must have some reasons and I also want to support them. I said we needed a tested captain to take us through this storm so that we can arrive at the harbour safely.
I said Baba, once you make up your mind, I will fly back and join you. So, I arrived at the very day he was launching his campaign. During the campaign, I was in the logistics because I was a logistician in the military. So, at the end of the campaign, Baba asked me what I wanted in the government.
Looking at the two of us both from the military, I said I would want to be his Chief of Staff. Baba said he already had General Abdullahi. He asked which other position I wanted, I said sir let me go to the party. He said you this old soldier, how would you manage the party. That was how I came to the party. That was how l learnt the ropes, the civilian behaviour is different from the military behaviour. You need a lot of patience, you need a lot of listening. When the quarrel started, of course I was very angry. I didn’t do anything.
Human beings, when they see a relationship being solid and golden, they will try to smear it. That in itself, I have also learnt a lesson. When Baba came, you know he is no longer a young man. If an old man says, my son, he doesn’t need to speak more than that. He said Bode, I am not growing young. This rebuilding must not stop.
Are you confident of INEC’s impartiality after the Ekiti election?
I watched the Ekiti election from afar. There are so many parametres. But I believe that before the Osun election, the PDP must do a thorough post mortem analysis. I told you about the monetisation. The way money was used in Ekiti, very disgraceful.
I can’t give my personal opinion. The party must meet. Now they are at the tribunal. I just pray the tribunal will be fair to allow us have the right electoral process. In the developed world now, there is no problem.
You finish your election, by evening, the results are there. But here, you have PVC, you have CVR, you go from here to there. Before you land in the first collation centre, if the figure is 200, they have put 6 before the 2.
Most Nigerians are worried that the PDP has not presented credible opposition. You have been silent in terms of effective communication
I know people have said that we have been a little bit too quiet. When we were in power for like 16 years and suddenly we lost it, we went into shock, wondering what hit us. I think gradually, we are out of that. We are not like Lai Mohammed. You could see the lie they are spinning, that Saraki was in cahoots with Daura.
You can go and say that to the Marines. Where were they keeping all those Senators that would have gone to do the illicit job? What did they do in Benue? So, it was Saraki that asked Daura to go and do what they did in Benue? Haba!