A chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Olabode George has said the lack of unity in the party predisposed the party to losing the 2023 presidential election, saying that regrouping of G5 governors is a pointer to the fact that the party must rise to the occasion.
According to him, the election was manipulated in favour of the eventual winner but the crisis in the PDP made it easier for the results to be manipulated.
Speaking on Thursday during an interview with Arise TV, George added that the PDP failed to go into the election with a united house and is now paying the price for the lack of unity.
He argued that if the PDP had respected its constitution and zoned its presidential ticket correctly, the party would have easily won the 2023 election despite the manipulation.
The former PDP Deputy National Chairman also accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman, Professor Mahmoud Yakubu of manipulating the results by switching to manual compilation of results after promising to use the electronic system.
He said, “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, and so the opposition was able to manipulate it.
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“It’s not a matter of discipline or indiscipline; it is well stated in the constitution of the party; we deviated from it, and we were put straight down; they gave us an uppercut.
“They manipulated the result of the elections, as we can see. What bothered me was that Prof. Yakubu told us that they have gotten a new system, and we are going to use an electronic system. Only to be told on the day that they had a glitch and reverted to the manipulation of the past.
So, we are in court, and we will see what is going to happen. However, imagine if the party was a solid rock; nobody would ‘cheat’ us.”
The PDP stalwart added that while the outcome of the case is being awaited, it is important for the party to seriously focus on reconciliation.
“I am still hopeful 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,” he added.
It would be recalled that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the February 25 presidential election in Nigeria.
The result is however being challenged by the PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar and the verdict of the Supreme Court on the matter is expected in the coming days.
