Chief Olabode George, a former deputy national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has reiterated that Abubakar Atiku’s emergence as the PDP presidential candidate for the 2023 election negates the party’s constitution.
According to him, had the PDP stuck religiously to its principle of zoning, its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, wouldn’t have emerged as its standard bearer.
George said the former vice president was allowed to contest, and eventually won the presidential ticket based on an in-house agreement that opposed the provision of the party’s constitution.
George made this assertion on Friday during his interview on Arise TV, in response to those faulting the calls for the resignation of the party’s National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu.
Recall that there have been growing calls among the PDP stalwarts, spearheaded by Wike, for Ayu to step down from the position to allow peace and stability in the party. Credible News reported more on this story here:
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The PUNCH had on Thursday reported that Gorge, during a press conference in Lagos, called for Ayu’s resignation while making a case for the position to be filled by a southerner.
But defending his call for Ayu’s resignation on Friday, George said it was surprising that some party members were advocating for the anti-Ayu group to respect the constitutional provision that supports a new chairman to emerge from the same zone as Ayu even if he (Ayu) resigns.
The elder statesman explained that if the party members can abandon the constitution and allow all zones to contest when, in fairness, the presidency should have been zoned to another region aside from the north, then the same can apply to Ayu’s situation for another chairman to come from the south.
George said, “On the issue of constitutionality, I referred you to the fact that our party’s constitution explicitly states, and I quote: “there will be zoning and rotation of elective offices and party offices,” and if we had stuck rigidly to that, there was no chance for Atiku to have emerged as the presidential candidate.”
“So, when it suits you, you can refer to the constitution; when it doesn’t suit you, you can back away from the constitution. If we all on moral suasion purpose, and during a family discussion, we agreed that, “Look, people have been canvassing, spending money and going round for the last six months and since there was no definitive selection or zoning of whether it should come from the north, south, west or east, let us allow this to go now.” The same principle is what will happen for Ayu.
George continued, “If we could accept the issue (sideline constitution provision) for a presidential candidate to come from any zone then, which is against what is in our constitution, then what is good for the goose is good for the gander.” On this premise (Ayu’s resignation), we can do that again. Allow us for this period to do that because no matter what happens, at the end of the election, whether we win or we don’t win, there will be a convention to revisit the whole thing about these positions.
“They (those backing Ayu’s chairmanship) are making it look as if it is rigidity. We bent the constitution based on moral suasion purposes, justice, and equity to allow all the zones to contest and now when the same issue comes up to allow the south to produce the national chairman, they are now saying no, it will go against the constitution.
“It is true that it will go against the Constitution. But they forget there was a provision for the zoning of the presidential candidate in the constitution too, but we abandoned that for unity and peace. “We allowed everyone to contest, and if we were able to do that at that time, what is different now?” George added.
You can read more of such stories at Credible News and The Cheer News
