Bode George, prominent chieftain within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has attributed the Party’s defeat at the 2023 presidential poll, to its failure to uphold its constitutional principles and a lack of unity among its members.
The presidential election, which saw Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) emerge winner as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), witnessed a legal challenge from the PDP’s candidate, Atiku Abubakar, who sought to overturn the outcome.
Atiku’s efforts were unsuccessful at the elections petitions tribunal, and he has since lodged an appeal with the Supreme Court which is slated to be heard on Monday.
Assessing the development, George expressed optimism that the Supreme Court might favour Atiku and the PDP.
While emphasizing the importance of unity and reconciliation within the Party, irrespective of the legal verdict, he stated, “I am still hopeful that we will win as we head to the Supreme Court, but if a decision is made, we must be prepared to come down state by state to resolve the crisis created before the elections. We can disagree, but we must not be disagreeable.”
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The former military governor of Ondo State, pointed out that the lack of unity within the party was a significant contributing factor to its electoral setback.
He also raised concerns about alleged manipulation during the election, which, he argued, was made easier due to the internal divisions within the PDP.
George described as deeply troubling, INEC Chairman Mahmoud Yakubu’s scheme of manipulating the election results using manual compilation, despite having initially promised to use the electronic system.
He stated, “The real postmortem analysis has to be done behind closed doors and not for public hearing. However, everybody now knows there’s no oneness in our party. It was a divided party so that the opposition could manipulate it. It’s not a matter of discipline or indiscipline; it is well stated in the party’s constitution. We deviated from it and were put straight down; they gave us an uppercut.
“Imagine if the party were a solid rock, nobody would ‘cheat’ us.”
