An Atiku presidency would have collapsed, says Bode George

Bode George, former deputy national chairman (south) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), says Nigeria would have experienced an upheaval if Atiku Abubakar was elected president in 2023. 

George spoke on Friday when he featured on ‘The Morning Show’, a programme on Arise TV.

Abubakar, who was the standard-bearer of the PDP in the 2023 elections, lost the vote to Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

George said Nigerians would not have accepted a scenario where Abubakar — who hails from the north — succeeded Muhammadu Buhari, another northerner.

“If Atiku had won — I would have stayed in my house because I knew that for real in the future he would collapse. This country would never accept,” he said.

“If he had won that election, you think this country would have been stable? Because somebody from the north (Buhari) had just finished eight years and our own norm is that after the eight years, the presidential candidate must come to the south.”

The PDP chieftain claimed that the party’s zoning arrangement was “manipulated” to favour Abubakar.

“The moment we interfered with it, manipulating the whole process to satisfy Atiku, that’s where the problem started. For us to pretend as if there was not a problem, we are just wasting time,” George said.

Before the PDP primary election of 2023, some party stakeholders, including a group of five governors, had requested that the presidential ticket be zoned to the south, in line with the rotation system in the party’s constitution.

The agitation heightened because Buhari, a northerner from Katsina, was completing his second term in office.

Some members of the party withdrew their support for Atiku after he won the presidential ticket.

George also blamed the crisis in the PDP on Abubakar’s nomination as the party’s flagbearer.

The PDP chieftain also said he would not serve as a member of the party’s reconciliation committee.

On Wednesday, the PDP inaugurated a reconciliation committee to resolve the wrangling in the party.

George was named in the 26-member committee chaired by Tom Ikimi, a former minister of foreign affairs.

Speaking on the constitution of the committee, George said he cannot serve under Ikimi, alleging that the committee chairman belongs to a group of members “dividing the party”.

“I can’t serve under him (Ikimi) because when did he join the party?” he asked.

“We know within ourselves the various groupings that are dividing the party. That’s what the party should sit down first and resolve.”