September 10, (THEWILL) – Chief Bode George is former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP). In this interview with AYO ESAN, he speaks on issues as they affect the nation. Excerpts:
If you had President Bola Tinubu’s ear, what advice would you give him? You also said you don’t agree with the way the palliatives are being distributed. How do you want it distributed?
There is no individual in this planet called earth that knows it all. I asked the question when I was talking. I asked who the chief economic adviser in the Presidential Villa is. Is he a Voodoo economist? Is he a medieval economist? Basic facts in economics, too much money chasing too few goods, results in hyperinflation. You gave N5bn to the states. Who took that decision? You gave each state N5bn for palliative. The population of Lagos State is about 22 million people and Bayelsa’s population is about two million people, yet both states got the same amount. Kano, a very massive state, got the same sum of money as Jigawa State. Is it money for the boys or money for the people?
You know the whole world is now a global village. The moment the Russians shut down their gas supply to Europe they were all in hell. There is pain in the United Kingdom, too. Go to the market there are so many things that is missing. The people are shouting, doctors are on strike, railway workers are on strike. The salary they are trying to give cannot meet their daily needs. The cost of electricity is high. But you can listen to the Chancellor of Exchequer; I was watching him around 2am he was telling the people that they have taken care, by taking up the bill, 50 per cent of the bill to every household in electricity consumption. That is direct impact. They are paying for it. Right now, they are saying their GDP has increased.
Now the interest rate is coming down because those who have got mortgages would pay more. They will want to mop up if they increase the interest rate, so that they will go and put their money in the banks to get interests. And they are lowering the interest rate paid by industries to employ more people. What the hell are we doing here?
PDP is 25 years old now. Can you tell us the successes and challenges of the party in the past 25 years?
I joined politics because of the tenets that I read about this party. And I am happy to tell you that that PDP is the first political party in Nigeria that has the full colours of our nation. From the swampy region to the Savannah forest in the north.
What did the founding fathers do? I remember a few of them. Late Chief Bola Ige was a founding father of the PDP. He attended the first meeting. Do you know what they did? He sat in the same room with Dr Alex Ekwueme. Can you imagine that? With Papa Jim Nwobodo. Then Papa Solomon Lar sat with Alhaji Ciroma in the same room to discuss political union. When about 14 of them met, they sat and said what are these mitigating factors that have been preventing our nation from growing? They said look, the majority always have their ways, while the minority are only onlookers. We can’t be in an association where one man will be the leader and others will be just follow-follow. That is why they decided to divide Nigeria into six geopolitical zones. And they came up with six top positions, President, the Vice President, the Senate President, the Speaker, the Secretary to the Government and the party’s National Chairman. Each one of these positions will go to each zone so that everybody will go home with something.
That was how we started it in 1998. Everybody went home satisfied. There was a proviso: After eight years, all positions in the North will go to the South and all positions in the South will go to the North. We will be rotating so that one day, a candidate of a minority group will be the President of Nigeria. You can’t imagine that in 1960 that somebody from a minority group will one day become the president of Nigeria. That was how the party started. We sustained that. That is what we jettisoned that made the party to lose. Where is Obi from? Is it not PDP? What of the G-5 Govs? Are they not from the PDP? Ayu should have managed it better. We will never have gone to the level of disbandment. Like I said we can disagree, but we should not be disagreeable. We have learnt our lessons. Let us get together. Let us get a management team that will be fair to all. After the Supreme Court, we can say let’s meet and let us move forward. I don’t think it is still late for us to meet. We can still get together. We don’t want it to go the ANPP way.
So, it has been 25 years of a lot of experiences. We have been to the topmost mountain in Nigeria, and we have also rolled back to bottom of a deep valley to be in opposition.
You said it is not in the interest of any nation to hold on to a military government. Then how do you see the new trend of military rule in Francophone West Africa?
I was in the military. I knew and I was privileged to get a non-regimental appointment. You just get appointed, you are not elected. You just moved in after your name was announced and you maintain peace there, put smiles on the faces of the people, which is the essence of government, and make sure there is tranquility and peace.
Now why it is not fashionable is that there are three arms of government: The judiciary, legislature and executive. And they are equal branches of government. When the military government comes, the first thing they tell you is to suspend the constitution. In some countries, they will retain the judiciary. The executive is there. The one they removed is the legislative arm. Why is the legislative arm the elected representatives of every constituency? The voice of the people. Then what are you governing if people are not represented? On a short run, the people may shout, ‘Ah we have a new fellow’. I am talking as a man who has gone through the mill. I am trying to exchange my knowledge on the shortcoming of military governments. Once the legislature is not there, how do you know the feelings of the people? How do you know their needs? You have maximum commissioners and the commissioners are not representing the constituencies. Remember how many you can have?
The nearest I have been in Ondo State before my appointment was passing through Ore while travelling to our base in Warri. I never visited Akure before then. But when I got there, thank God some people gave me the books of Baba Awolowo to read. I read about the three arms of government. They are equal but separate. Once we have discountenanced them, that is the people, how can you govern effectively? How can you govern effectively without knowing the needs of the people or hearing from them? You know the legislators go home because they elected them. They would have had their constituency meetings perpetually. That is the major difference between the military and democratic governments.
When you look at the effects of military incursion into governance, it destroyed the oneness. The unity expected of you because we don’t fight war by saying Yoruba man, Igbo man, Hausa or Fulani man, let’s go. No, you have a team and we go to war as one and so you must be your brother’s keeper, irrespective of tribe or tongue. Once the military enters governance, the unity and oneness will go in the military because it is not everybody that can be governor or minister. Pettiness, jealousy and so on and so forth will creep in into the system, undermining the very purpose for which you were established.
AYO ESAN, has been actively reporting and analyzing political events for different newspapers for over 18 years. He has also successfully covered national and state elections in Nigeria since the inception of this democracy in 1999.
