Chief Olabode Ibiyinka George is a former military officer, politician and statesman.
Chief George, simply referred to as BG in political circles, was a onetime military governor of Ondo State and later deputy national chairman (South) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In this interview with RAZAQ BAMIDELE in his Lagos office, George insists that, for the sake of fairness and equity, the presidency should move to the South-east in 2023, stressing, “What is good for the goose should equally be good for the gander.”
The Lagos-born statesman also spoke on other topical issues, such as the security challenges, which, he says, need comprehensive dialogue to address. He also speaks about why Lagos State has been elusive for his party, PDP, to win since the inception of the current democratic dispensation.
Is your mind at rest over the current situation in Nigeria vis-a-vis security challenges and the economy?
Let me be factual. I am also worried like every other person. Sometimes, I am a little bit uncomfortable with the social media reports that seemed alarming. I was later reading about social media owners saying they are going to control what goes on there. Sometimes, when I read them I would exclaim, wow, how could this be possible especially on security issue.
But when a state governor comes out and says his convoy was also attacked. Then I spoke to an Oba, who said he was lucky that he escaped an abduction. Then you keep reading about Zamfara, Katsina from the North. Then some elders are coming in and also talking. So, we all must be worried. When there was a common denominator in what they were saying, and people are telling us they have army of occupation in their areas. So, you must be worried.
So, my advice is that Oga patapata (Mr President), I am talking now not as a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), but I am talking like a staff officer to him because he was my senior. Let him regard my advice as opinion from a staff officer. I am suggesting to him that, he should, as a matter of urgency, call a Town Hall meeting.
I mean all the ethnic groups in this country. They know who they can call. When they call their governors, they know the various ethnic groups within their states. Then they come to Abuja at the coverage of the state governors. Let us have a town hall meeting. Obas would be there. Chiefs would be there. Youths would be there. Women would be there. Scholars and professionals would be there.
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In politics and in a democratic dispensation, it is talk, talk, talk. Let them come and talk. Let them come and talk their experiences for the president to hear first-hand information directly from the horse’s mouth. It should not be through agencies or proxies, no. It should be direct from the swampy forest to the savannah region. He would hear from the people and they would provide solutions. It is not a matter of this says this and that says that and end there. They would talk and make suggestions. All the president’s staff would be there to collate the matter and go back and now see whether it is true that Rome is burning or all is well in Rome.
It is a matter of urgency. It is getting bigger and bigger. People live in fear. People are worried. Initially, I said, all these stories, were they genuine of fake? But when you see some respectable people saying the same thing, I say there is need for us to sit down and talk as a nation. He should not throw this advice and suggestion away, that all is well.
Are you talking about mini national conference?
No, it is not a conference. It is just a one-day issue. It is a one-day matter, people would arrive at Abuja from the various parts of the country centrally in Abuja. Otherwise, he could have done it zone by zone. The Town Hall meeting is a one-day affair. It is better for the President to let the people also see his own side of the story. Let them hear it. No intermediary. Direct to direct. Let representatives of every segment of the society congregate in Abuja and talk on their suggestions.
The president would note it and then he would also address them by saying, please don’t be annoyed. He would appeal to them to please, hold it. we are going to address the issue and will take actions. He cannot see everything. Direct contact is better than, this man told me or that woman informed me and so on.
That is my advice from a staff officer to his boss. This has nothing to do with politics. So, if you are called to come and talk, do not say I don’t belong to their party. No, it is not a matter of APC, PDP, ADC, AA or whatever. No, this is a national issue that concerns everybody. My suggestion is what I have said. If they want to take it, fine. I could have kept my mouth shut and continue to be managing to remain safe.
But there is need to do it urgently. And when he does that, it would restore the confidence in the people that we have a leader, and that we have a nation. This is not military government. You have to listen to the people. Everybody is concerned.
What the Judiciary is doing here and there is political. But today, it is your watch. That is my suggestion.
Would you say the security challenges have advert effect on the economy?
Of course, it does. The number one issue for any government is the security of lives and property. If that is not assured, who will bring his money and invest? Who? Have you seen any investors in Syria? It is to your tent, oh Israel! Everybody is running far from the maddening crowd. Where
there is peace, there will be progress. Where there is safety of lives and property, there will be progress. People would now be deeper in their school of thoughts and ensure that the best is given to the environment. For me I believe, we must, it is our nation, we have differences, but to jaw, jaw, is better than to war, war. Please, let us talk. We are waiting.
Are you comfortable with the electoral processes under this administration?
I don’t agree with the process of our elections. In 21st century, listen to the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), saying, they do manual collation in the 21st Century? How? If you have money in the bank, if one kobo is transferred, you will get an alert. If somebody brings money, you get an alert. You want to transact business, you press your phone, off it goes. It is so, anywhere you are in this country. And you are telling us you do manual collation.
What effect would that effect have on the nation’s democracy?
The effect of that is that the will of the people is being subjugated. They would decide on what they want to do like, this is the man we want to for this post and so on. When we do that, they would go to court. It is the Judiciary that would decide who should be president, who should be governor and who should be whatever. Where in the civilised world do you hear that!
But people must feel confident, that this procedure we are watching has no human interference. But where you are now saying, finish voting, use your PVC card, use technology to vote. And then from there, they write by hand and they carry the sheets up and down. How can it be fair, where human inputs, no matter how committed, would not do wuruwuru. Is that what we want? No!
What then is your party’s feeling over the last general election?
We were cheated. We are saying it that we were cheated. But now, to prove it they have confirmed that the collation was manual. That is why I asked, manual? They said no, they brought the papers by hand. What is the difference? They would manipulate the whole thing. That is one. The second one is the Judiciary that are deciding, are members of the Legislative arm and the Executive. Is that the right thing to do?
How many times have we heard that Americans went to court over election issues? Or in England, German or France? I watched the French election. By 6pm, 6.30pm, they have started announcing projection of the winner. By 9.00pm that same day, all over France, the loser phoned the winner to congratulate him. There is no Judiciary in the matter at all.
Here, the lawyers are screaming, asking for billions of naira. You finish the election and the lawyers are waiting in the wings talking about going to Judiciary. The Judiciary decides that it is Mr. Lawson who should be president. Mallam whoever has lost and should go and sit down at home until another four years. End of stories.
Then, what happens to the will of the people? We need to sit and think, why? It is because the process is subject to a lot of manipulations. So, we are wasting time deceiving ourselves. Let’s go for election for civilian administration and so on. Deception!
In your own view sir, what is the way out?
It is just to do what is right in the 21st century. I just gave an example of banks. No matter where you are, if they take your money, you get an alert. Inflow or outflow, something would give you an alert that something is happening to my account. Now to now manage the process in the 21st century when technology is the in thing, manual collation is out of it. Nigerians are brilliant. Name any known field in the world today, you will find a Nigerian who is an expert. So, why?
Look at India, 800 million people voted this last election. That massive country, the largest democracy in the world, nobody was heading to court. the reason is that the process is foolproof. No human input. There is no wuruwuru there. The prime minister was sworn-in. he has started another term. The day they are fed up, the will of the people would be respected.
What is going on here? We are pretending as if all is well here. No! The experience of June 12 should have taught us that the process must be solid gold. No. what are we doing? What are the lessons of June 12? We hear cacophony of noises here and there, shouting and dancing only. What lesson have we learnt therefrom? The lesson is to make sure that the electoral process that we do, would have minimum input of human being.
With PDP’s performance in the last election, what is expected from the party in 2023?
You know, I have been talking to you generally. Our party too would have to adjust. You know we were in governance for almost 16 years. For the first time, we are experiencing what it takes to be in the opposition, which is also a lesson. It is training for us. We have seen the ups and downs, indiscipline, all kind of people projecting themselves to be bigger and higher than the party and the system.
And you are worried that, what is going on here? This is not our experience. So, we have a lot to learn from the other side of the midnight, which is where we are now. But, we will succeed by the grace of God, if we are humble enough to learn without saying we know it all. Nobody knows it all.
Are you expressing the confidence that if all the aforementioned conditions are met, that PDP would bounce back to power in 2023?
Oh, yes of course, by the grace of God and power of the people. Let them see that humility in us. Let them see that superb organisational ability in us. Let us prove to them that this party is a national party that we have a system that works. Let them know that the PDP has a system that respects all the geo-political zones of the country without anybody being left behind.
These are things we brought to play. These are things that endeared the people to us. But this process must change. Let the will of the people be respected within our party. And that is what we practise. There is no overbearing attitude. There is not in our party that, ‘Oga said.’ No. For elective offices, you have to go to the field and compete. If you win, fine. If you lose, you come back again some other time.
Coming back to your backyard, how has ruling Lagos State been eluding your party since 1999?
Lagos has been elusive because, one: The fellow we are competing with, it is not that he is smart or he has some magic wand, the amount of funds he dangles is enormous. On his own side as one man, if he says you are going nowhere, so be it! This is because he is the one to throw the money for elections.
We ask him to come up for debate and let the people hear us out. But because of the very poor process, the procedure of election is a load of manipulations. Even the people themselves know. You know the last election for governorship, less than 16% of voters came out to vote. It was worse! They were not interested because they knew they would be subjugated. Why then should they come out to vote? But if there is a process, where, if what you vote for is what would be the outcome, people would troop out.
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Are we working towards that?
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), should have to. We are always working toward making sure that the people must decide who gets what. But you now go to the general election, and after all the efforts of casting your vote in your polling unit, they announce the results there. By the time it gets to the first collation centre, second collation centre, the state collation centre, the figures are different. And then you say you are going to court. You go to tribunal. Then, who decides the winner? Is it the people or the court?
You see what I am saying. And that is why I say, the process must be solid gold. It must be human proof. No interference and human intervention there. If it is manually handled, and the figure is 20, and they put 6 in front of the 2, it becomes 620! And if you raise objection or observation, you would be bundled and thrown out of the collation centre. Whereas if it is something that everybody is seeing and watching, there would not be wuruwuru. How come the French election never led to court action despite the fact that it was keenly contested?
It was because the woman knew there was no wuruwuru in the process. She called the man and said, I bow and doff my cap, congratulations! We meet again next time.
Why can’t we do that here? That is why you will know that this fellow in Lagos has been doing a lot of manipulation and there is nothing that has a beginning that will not have an end. If you want to know whether people are genuinely in love with him, just look at the number of the people that ventured out. They were tired. But unfortunately for us, we also had our fault. When people say, “Oga is leading us,” I ask, leading who? Is it an army that we are fighting a battle? Or that my tactical knowledge is zero? Or that my analytical mind is zero? No!
The process itself does not encourage serious competition. That is the bottom-line of it. And people are getting fed up. When somebody just woke one day and said, this incumbent governor is not coming back again for a second term, you wonder, what he did wrong. And before you knew it, he had carried the battle to the full stretch. He said the governor was not coming back and the wuruwuru primaries they organised threw the governor out of the bus.
But when the people were wondering, we said have we not told you that the Emperor in the Bourdillon is he who decides who should be governor, who should be Speaker, who should be members of the House of Assembly and so on?! If you raise your voice against him, you are out.
All those noise makers in our party who insisted they were going to the All Progressives Congress (APC), have you heard about them again? Just like with one swerve of the sword, they have gone under never to be heard again. I heard Senator Seye Ogunlewe has gone to another party. Why does a dog go back to his vomit? That is the question I want to ask him. I listen to what he said, that he was free to decide what to do and I asked, free to go back to where you ran from initially when the emperor had not even gone full throttle? He is there now, let him make any comment against the emperor like he had been doing here in the PDP.
How feasible is Yoruba presidency in 2023?
Let me say this, as far as our party is concerned, we are very methodical in our party. Let me take you back to our founding fathers’ period in 1998. Most of them were active politicians in the First Republic when the majority were to be heard and seen and the minority were only to be seen and not heard. They brought that to bear when we got back from the military to civilian administration in 1999.
We then said, let us avoid the pitfall of the past. We are all Nigerians whether you are a minority from the North, or majority from North, or minority tribe from the South or majority tribe from the South. Let us feel that we are all Nigerians. Let us feel like all of us have a stake in this country.
So, the G18 now decided to have zoning. First of all, they divided Nigeria into six geo-political zones, three in the North, three in the south. They then came up with six top positions in the land -President, Vice President, Senate President, Speaker, Secretary to the Federal Government and then the National Chairman of the party. Six top positions for the six geo-political zones. Every zone would go home with one of these positions each at least. So, that sense of belonging is reassured to each zone. After eight years, the posts that had been in the North would come to the South and the ones that had been in the South would go to the North. In other words, the three positions in the South would go to the three zones in the North and vice versa. So, that sense of belonging was re-established.
And that was one major parameter in the political equation of this country that added value and sustained democracy in the land. Having done that, our party went flawless. Three positions in the North, three positions in the South. After eight years, the three positions in the North came back to the South and vice versa. Remember, presidency changed. That is the sine qua non to a solid political foundation and democratic practice in Nigeria. Nigeria is not a natural country. It is an artificial creation of the British. And having created it, we said we should be able to work together. Let us remove all these differences. ‘Though tongues and tribes may differ, in brotherhood we stand.’ That was the concept those fathers brought to bear. It is as true today as it was in those days. Now, if you see the APC as a party, they don’t believe in zoning. They want to take us back to the 1960 era. That problems that existed between the majority and the minority are now rearing their ugly heads again.
If that happens, have we learnt any lesson from the past? Are we going back to the things that created the deluge of differences? No, no! You know there are three equal arms of government, the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary. That is why that platform of a three legged body must remain stable. And the three equal arms are also independent. Three equal but independent arms of government.
Now, somebody just brought to my attention that the top three, the heads of each of these three top of the arms are all from one side of the country. He said where is the zoning system of the PDP? Our party will never do that because of the lesson of the past. That is number one. Number two is because of ensuring the oneness, togetherness, the camaraderie, the sense of belonging to an association that we are all equal in the country. That is lost now.
What happens to the three other ones from the South? Our story is like the story of Switzerland. They have three major tribes in Switzerland, the French, the German and the Italian. Exactly like in Nigeria, they rotate the headship of the country. So, every Nigerian should have a sense that, whether I am in the majority or minority, if I have what it takes to lead, they will allow me do some day. That is the beauty of nationalism, that I am proud to be a Nigerian. This majority/minority dichotomy would not work. Why are we going back to that period and enforcing it. That is the major difference between our party, PDP and the APC. It would never happen in our party.
Are you saying that the presidency should go to the South-east instead of South-west?
Yes, if it comes back here to the South. South-west has been president during this period. North has been president during this period. South-south has been president during this period. What is good for the goose is also good for the gander. Why should we be saying that it must come back to the South-west? Na we alone dey?
