Former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olabode George, has revealed how President Bola Tinubu, through his Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, convinced him to stay in Nigeria after the 2023 elections.
It would be recalled that George had vowed to leave the country if Tinubu became president.
In the build to the 2023 elections, the elderstatesman made headlines when he expressed his opposition to Tinubu’s presidential ambitions.
“I will move away from Nigeria. I’ll leave because he will be your representative on the international plane. Which investment will he bring here? This is not the kind of person we can hand over this massive country to manage,” he had said.
However, during a recent interview on Arise TV, George recounted how Gbajabiamila, acting on Tinubu’s behalf, appealed to him to reconsider.
“Once they heard that, Tinubu sent his chief of staff, who is my little brother from Lagos State, Femi Gbajabiamila, to appeal to me. He came to say, ‘My boss said I should tell you, please be calm’. They knew they had wronged me. They said they were sorry,” George recalled.
George also touched on the internal crises within the PDP that erupted during the lead-up to the 2023 presidential election, criticizing the party’s inability to address the issues.
“The last convention, the presidential convention, was when everything started… you cannot have the chairman of the party and the presidential candidate from one side of the divide,” he said.
He went on to recall how PDP’s former chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, broke his commitment to resign if a northern candidate was selected.
“Ayu made a public statement that peradventure the presidency comes from the north, he would resign… This is breach of trust! Of course, people would react to that.”
In his appeal, George urged aggrieved PDP members to set aside their personal ambitions and work together to rebuild the party.
“Atiku and Wike should calm down and let us go to the elders meeting where we would start this discussion, to trace this crisis back to that convention, because that was where everything started going in the wrong direction,” he added.
