Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain, Chief Bode George spoke candidly about Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu recently.
“Bola Tinubu and I are not sworn enemies. Bola and I met during the burial of Alao Arisekola in Ibadan. That was the first time I saw him physically after I left the military. I was seated in the front row at the stadium. As I was going out, I saw him but refused to greet him. Then Governor Abiola Ajimobi jumped up and said, “Egbon, you did not greet Bola Tinubu? I said, ‘why would I greet him? Did you know what he did against me where he got the court to convict me for an offence I never committed?”
“But Oba Otudeko advised that we should use Arisekola’s death to settle the disagreement. I asked Ajimobi to go and call Bola Tinubu. Tinubu came to where I was and we shook hands. He said, Egbon, e mabinu (Don’t be offended). I am not God. So, since then, we settled our disagreement. The prison experience was a period of learning for me. The fact that we resolved it does not mean I cannot refer to it for the younger generations to learn, in order to avoid such pitfalls in the future. The only person you can trust absolutely is God Almighty.”
“There is nothing again. If we are in the same party, we probably will reason together. But he is still in another party. We are trying to get our party stabilised to have an effective opposition. When they were in the opposition, Lai Mohammed was criticising us anyhow, but now he is in the government, we want to caution him too because a lot of rubbish is coming from him. Don’t you know that Lai Mohammed is now being referred to as a liar? He is my friend but that is the impression people have of him.”
“I don’t believe in Bola Tinubu’s concept of politics. Their concept of operation in the APC is different from the way I was brought up. A tree cannot make a forest. That is the difference between us. Let us collectively take up the mantle, not godfather kind of politics.”
– Culled from The Punch