By Henry Uche
Chief Bode George, a PDP chieftain in a monitored interview on Channels TV, spoke on various issues around the party and other national matters.
You are still in London, have you ‘Japa’?
You know the distance in those days, it will take you about 14 days to get to the UK by sea. But now you know with jets all over the place and modern technology, you can dash in and out any time and if you are doing business and strong enough to attend board meetings, you can still dash out.
You talked about peace, and NEC meeting is coming up, this peace is not reflecting in Edo and Rivers State?
I agree with you. I have been following the utterances and I am wondering, what is the Board of Trustees doing? The members of the Board of Trustees should be the elders in the room. And I am requesting with the new chairman and new secretary of the Board of Trustees. This is the time to forget all the various divide and go and talk to group A and talk to Group B, and see how they can bring everybody back on board.
Every day, when I listen to A and B, it really disturbs my mind because we have the capacity and the ability and a civilized people who set up this party of ours.
The least of all, we must continue in that line. Yes. There will be disagreements and it happens all over the world. Look at what is happening in America today. Between those who want Biden to go ahead and those who don’t want him to go ahead, discussions will go on; this party is not a private enterprise of any individual. For God’s sake, we will talk and that is the essence of politics. Let the leaders in BoT rise above the level of the utterances. It is getting so nasty what the electorate think about us. We want to retain and convince the electorate that yes, there will be crisis, but we have the capacity, the knowledge the temerity to handle all these. It is no longer Fubara and Governor Wike and all that, let the party BoT members get up. This is the time to show that they really meant well for the party. It’s disturbing when I listen to one group here, another group here, and then they have resort to judiciary that should be independent. One judge would give a judgement here, another would give another judgement there,;it’s very disturbing. The situation in the country calls for calmness because all is not going well. People are hungry and they have a right to be angry for God’s sake. Don’t let this thing totally get to a level where it can explode on our face. I’m a retired general, I know why I’m saying this.
It’s very very disturbing. The masses of this country are not happy. So you that are elected, you should calm down, you know and allow the elders to wade in whatever differences you have; it cannot be perpetual. So what is it that we are looking for that we cannot solve by ourselves? You lose something here, you gain there, I don’t know! It’s a new scenario. Let the right people get up and solve the problem.
Elections in Ondo and Edo, given the internal wrangling in PDP, what is really the way forward; is it wielding the big stick?
When you talk about the big stick in politics, it will disrupt the foundation. Let me remind our people; the man who was the convener of the founding fathers was Dr. Alex Ekwueme. He was the convener and he was able to convince even those who are well known as his political enemies.
He was able to convince Jim Nwobodo because they don’t agree. He was able to convince Pa Solomon Lar, he was able to convince Bola Ige in the West, they were never, never political friends but for the sake of the country. Everybody dropped all their own ambitions outside and rallied around to build up an iroko political party. And for God’s sake, how long have we been now? Over 20 years, it is still nothing! So he was able, and for all the elections that we had in the South, when it was zoned to the South, Dr. Alex Ekwueme contested with President Obasanjo; he declared he lost. He never at any time raised his hands to demonize or to destroy the party. That is a typical example of a civilized God-fearing man.
Why are our people doing this? I don’t know. There’s no perpetuity in anything you are doing, you will serve your time, leave a positive mark so that the books of history will be kind to you. I’m looking at him now. Everybody is sitting and watching as if all is well; even those in government. The Minister of agriculture just announced a palliative for 150 days, what is 150 days. What are the plans they have for us to start growing and ensuring that these things are available within the expanse of land that God gave Nigeria? Is there any part of Nigeria that is not blessed in terms of natural resources, human resources, and whatever. So, it is management of our resources that are not right. Look at the petty fighting up and down and I want to plead, I am getting almost 80, trying to calm the nerves of those who are getting angry, but angry about what? Election is coming. I’ve seen the powerful group put by the campaign team. I don’t have any quarrels about that. We will go back to serve. Like I said, look at the attitude of Pa Alex Ekwueme. His name would remain in the golden pages of the political history of our country. He never fought for one day to say no, I didn’t agree with everything. I was the one that formed the party. I was the one that was the convener, he didn’t do that; there is no perpetuity in human beings. We all have to exit one day. So let them all come down. And let’s do what is right.
Who are you referring to specifically?
Ok take Rivers State, you mentioned governor Wike, then the governor presently serving, Governor Fubara, there is some kind of disagreement between the two. Now, the pain is spreading to the base of the party. There are leaders and elders who should have waded in and tell them, you know it didn’t go well. But it is the responsibility of the Board of Trustees of the party. That is the upper chamber. Let them get people to meet group A and meet group B. They have leaders on either side. This party didn’t just come from anywhere. Pa Ekwueme and those others ensured that there was continuity and peace. You know, once you have more than one or two or three people in an organization, they’d disagree, but we must never be disagreeable. We will have differences of opinions about ideas and all that. And that’s why you have elders. That’s why the Board of Trustees was created because they are to sustain and maintain the peace that you need. When one will be fighting another if the national working committee cannot handle they bring in the Board of Trustees, the elders, those who have gone to this front and war before, who have seen all, to come in. I’m just watching, Pa Ekwueme never raised his hands in an attempt to destroy the party, rather he kept on ensuring that there was peace, there was agreement. Those are the things that are handed over to us. The exhilaration. So what are we waiting for? The man who is the chairman now is senator Wabara, let him get up, with the the Secretary; they are just warming the tables and chairs there, get some other elders who are still there. One or two of these founding fathers are still alive, but they are not in good health. If you go and meet with them., bring them in. You need elders now in the room. It is not completely out of control that the party cannot handle, we have had worse scenarios in the past and were able to survive, so why not now?
What is the missing link -capacity, prioritization, or resource management? Or what?
All those three items you mentioned, are very key and these are not being well addressed. If you really want to solve the problem, from my own perception, if you want to solve these problems, those who are managing directors of five banks, five top banks in Nigeria should be invited to the Villa. They know what they did, how they mismanaged the resources of the country under general Buhari’s administration.
You know, Bola has been trying to play some kind of a game so that they don’t put all the blame on him. I told him that we had one year of a test run for him, at least to learn what is happening in different sectors and we have seen it all, and so what he has to do is to proffer solutions. Now, the solutions he is proffering and those people who are the real managers of financial institutions, the monetary and fiscal measures, policies of Nigeria, those are the the people. Now you brought them back to be your advisors. So what are they going to talk to you about? What do they manufacture in the banks, why is our own top bankers in Nigeria so humongously wealthy than the people you find there as managing directors of Barclay banks you know, Lloyds Bank, and you know, all kinds of banks there.
What happened now, the money that was disbursed, the dollars that was handed over to the various banks for the use of customers who benefited from those states. We must talk the facts, they were just brushing things up on the surface and pretending that we’ll get the answer. Time is of essence, the people are now getting worse. And not only the people at the bottom, whether you are rich or poor man, everybody is now getting hungry. Things are not working. All these policies, they look like it will take you another century before they can realize; we want something that you know that will immediately give an initial cushion, and then people say, let’s see what is going on. All these theories they’re propounding and throwing up and down, of what impact are they? The British last week had their election, the conservative party that had been there for about 14 years collapsed; they lost the election woefully. You know what the new Labour Prime Minister is saying? He said look, he has heard them and he would be concerned about solving the problems rather than talking.
So, let the people see the impact of whatever theory or whatever, all these things you have just mentioned; that those things you mentioned are the key things. Nobody is achieving anything.
You were in the military, you have seen the insurgency, what is President Tinubu doing wrong?
Yes, you see, we were trained not like policemen because if you go to war, you have your enemies face to face frontally, it’s either you kill them or they kill you. No big deal. But when you now have social or internal unrest and you deploy the military and any one of them is killed, they will respond with the most potent force to fight back. We had suggested, the Council, the Constitutional conference committee that was established by former President Jonathan stated that we need to have a local police/State police. It is so urgent.
Because you know when you look at it, when we go to war, you have a defined enemy right, but in this one, it’s an insurgency; insecurity within, you don’t know who’s who, they come out during the day, dressed to be like part of this area but in the night, the turned to be something else. So, what you need will be people within their own community to police them. They don’t know themselves. They know the do’s and don’ts in their culture. They know the rules of the people in that culture. They know people from this house or that house. So they will be better off to be able to manage any aliens coming within their community. Okay, for God’s sake.
We need these police. We need the state police. They know their area, they know their language, their people. Look, I have one of my boys, he worked with me, he’s been in Borno over seven years. He doesn’t speak Hausa, he doesn’t speak Fulfulde, he doesn’t speak the local language, how can he be useful? They should stop politics now, we need reality on ground.
When is the NEC meeting coming up?
I m not sure. I was told they shifted it to September,
Is it before or after the Edo Election?
I’m not too sure about the date now, it was supposed to be in August, but shifted to September.
In Edo elections, how do you think your party would fare?
I’m very positive that my party would do very well. You know why? The experiences of the national management of our nation in the last nine years had not been anything to be proud of. Yes, we have internal wrangling, and this is one of the reasons why the elders of our party should go and cool their nerves because the majority of the electorate still believe that during the period of PDP, either national or local, they enjoyed themselves, life was meaningful What are these people doing to be given kudos to continue in what they’re doing, to continue in abject poverty, in stories without any positive outcome to the people. Those are the issues. And they are now more conscious. They keep calling me. I pray that the INEC will not mess up the elections; if INEC doesn’t mess up with the elections, the will of the people would prevail.
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