You can’t reap from PDP crisis, George tells Tinubu

Former Deputy national chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olabode George on Friday said All Progressive Congress (APC) national leader, Senator Bola Tinubu, should not expect to reap from the ongoing crisis rocking the PDP.

George said this at a stakeholders meeting, which took place at Ikoyi, and attended by party chieftains from across the state.

According to him, the PDP is a broad-based party and was never formed around a particular leader with an authoritarian disposition.

However, the party chieftain expressed optimism over an end to the crisis rocking the party, saying the PDP elders were currently in Abuja holding a series of meetings to bring about a final settlement.

George cautioned aggrieved chieftains of the party, including governors, to afford acts capable of pulling the government of Goodluck Jonathan down, even as he also warned that the country could not afford to witness what was happening in the Arab world.

“We cannot afford a Nigeria Spring,” he warned.

“No matter the depths of our grievances, we must strengthen the government that we all voted for. We must not pull it down. Yes, we can point out the errors and failings of our party, but we must not reduce ourselves to destructive brinkmanship. We must focus on rectifying the identified wrongs. We must focus on healing the broken places.

“We must resolve on finding an equitable balance. We must maneuver towards peace and compromise,” Chief George charged.

Speaking further, the former deputy national chairman argued that democracy was never about some “autocratic dominance of thought or some sweeping prevailing of a grim absolute value.”

“No sir, it is about the shared collective interests, the balancing of multiple articulations, the gradual, deliberate maneuvering towards the middle-ground, the painstaking aggregation of views and positions in the management of statecraft,” he said.

A vote of confidence was later passed in Jonathan by the gathering, which also endorsed the party’s mini convention held in Abuja recently.

George, while speaking on the crisis rocking the South-West chapter of the party, maintained that there was no crisis in the zone, saying that the zonal congress had to be delayed to bring about sanity into the party.

Those in attendance were the Lagos State chairman of PDP, Captain Tunji Shelle; Dr Abimbola Ogunkelu, Mr. Lanre Towry-Coker, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, Hon. Femi Onimole, Dr Ade Dosumu, Chief Moshood Salvador, Wahab Owokoniran, Lanre Dixon, among others.