Tuesday, April 15, 2025 - A member of the Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Bode George, says the party will meet its end if former Vice President Atiku Abubakar secures the party’s 2027 presidential ticket.
“If he (Atiku) picks it (PDP’s ticket), that is the end of
this party. If he picks it by manipulation which was what was done the last
time, we will not accept it,” Bode George said on Channels
Television’s Politics Today programme on Monday, April 14.
Atiku has been in a race to become Nigeria’s president for
over three decades and has been the presidential candidate of different parties
six times.
Atiku recently championed an inter-party alliance that
birthed a coalition on Thursday, March 20, 2025. Atiku, alongside former
Anambra governor Peter Obi, ex-Kaduna governor Nasir El-Rufai, amongst others,
announced the coalition as an attempt to oust incumbent President Bola Ahmed
Tinubu.
However, in a twist, PDP governors on Monday, April 14,
2025, rejected the coalition spearheaded by Atiku, ruling out any plan by the
party for mergers or coalition.
Speaking during the television programme on Monday, Bode
George applauded the PDP governors for rejecting the coalition led by
Atiku.
George said Atiku has not shown himself to be a leader of
the party because he has not waded into the intra-party squabbles that have
befallen the party in recent times.
Bode George said: “No, if he is the leader of the party, he
would have waded into it (the crisis).
“The fact that he was the presidential candidate of the
party at the last election doesn’t mean he is a bona fide, fixated leader of
the party. If he’s running for his private interest, it’s different from the
interest of the party.”
Asked whether Atiku could be the flag bearer of the PDP in
2027, the PDP chieftain said, “He cannot be. This is what I am saying. There
was eight years in the north, there should be eight years in the south. That is
the dictate, that is the doctrine of the PDP. I can’t say he cannot contest; he
can go to any party because it is his constitutional right but as far as we are
concerned, he cannot be the candidate.”
“There are rules. Section 7, Sub-section 3C of our
constitution. It states that once the presidential candidate has been in the
south for eight years, it had to go to the north. And after another eight
years, it would come to the south. Is Atiku from the South-West, South-South or
South-East?” George asked.
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