Bode George, the former deputy national chairman (south) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has stated that Nigeria might not have remained stable if Atiku Abubakar had been elected president in 2023.
Speaking on Friday during an appearance on Arise TV’s The Morning Show, George argued that Nigerians would not have accepted Abubakar, who hails from the north, as the successor to Muhammadu Buhari, another northerner.
George noted that Nigeria’s political norm dictates that the presidency should shift to the south after a northern president’s tenure, a practice that did not occur in the 2023 election, where President Bola Tinubu, a southerner from Lagos, ultimately won.
“If Atiku had won — I would have stayed in my house because I knew that for real in the future he would collapse. This country would never accept [it],” George said.
“If he had won that election, you think this country would have been stable? Because somebody from the north (Buhari) had just finished eight years, and our own norm is that after the eight years, the presidential candidate must come to the south.”
George also criticized the PDP’s internal processes, claiming that the party’s zoning arrangement was manipulated to favor Atiku in securing the presidential ticket for the 2023 election.
He suggested that this manipulation was the root of the party’s problems, including the withdrawal of support by several party members after Abubakar won the primary.
“The moment we interfered with it, manipulating the whole process to satisfy Atiku, that’s where the problem started. For us to pretend as if there was not a problem, we are just wasting time,” George added.
The PDP faced internal agitation before the 2023 primary election, with party stakeholders, including a group of five governors, demanding that the presidential ticket be zoned to the south, in line with the party’s rotation system.
This demand grew louder as Buhari, a northerner, was concluding his second term.
The nomination of Atiku as the PDP’s presidential candidate ultimately contributed to the crisis within the party, according to George.
