A member of the Board of Trustees of the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Bode George, has warned that the group would be doomed if former Vice President Atiku Abubakar should secure its presidential ticket in 2027.
Atiku has run the race to become Nigeria’s President since 1993 under the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
In 1999, he won as Vice President with President Olusegun Obasanjo.
“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 in March recently began a campaign to forge an inter-party alliance.
Speaking during the television programme, Bode George applauded the PDP governors for rejecting the coalition led by Atiku on Monday.
According to George, Atiku had not shown himself to be a leader of the party because he has not waded into its intra-party squabbles in recent times.
Bode George said: “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?”
