It is no longer news that some Lagos elders visited Chief Bode George a few days ago to discuss a very important matter with him. It had to do with the reconciliation of Chief Bode George and President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, at the behest of Prince Tajudeen Olusi.
Present were Justice Olorunmbe (OON), (a retired Judge, and former Lagos Deputy Governor, Ajoke Orelope. Also in attendance were Gen. Tajudeen Olanrewaju and Odofin Layi Ogunbambi. Some other eminent Yoruba personalities and Omo Eko leaders of thought were in attendance.
After the meeting, Chief Bode George revealed what his position is on the matter. “I told baba, in all clear terms that there is nothing personal between me and this gentleman. I have nothing personal. All I disagree with are this methodologies of governance, his own ways of managing the resources of the land, for the benefits of the people and it’s not impacting on the people. “I’m a born & bred Lagosian. I was born and brought up in Lagos. Go to my local government. First of all, Femi Gbajabiamila and had a discussion and I told him all the things that I want them to do in Lagos. It doesn’t matter to me. What matters to me is that let Lagos be like the best city in the world , make life more meaningful, impact on the minds people positively, because the power lays with the People and there is nothing rather than that. The method of management, financial management is completely despicable. So I said to them “ I have no problem, no objections as far as I’m concerned. There is nothing personal Sir” it is whatever he has done in the past. As a Christian you said “Vengeance is the almighty God, it’s not mine. And I have already seen that those who are the acting players have suffered for it already in this life. So for me, the last option, the last request was that ,we should, whether the court has finished or not, or the process are over or not, I should join the others to go and congratulate Bola Tinubu, like Wike and Seyi have done. I said I’m not Seyi and I’m not Wike. I’m much older than them and that’s their opinion. For me, if maybe at the end of the analysis, our party is looking forward to winning at the court so if I jump ship, how will that look? Like a traitor, “ahh common”, I was born into a political family in this Lagos and respect for what is right and what is just. These are the ways of my upbringing, nothing personal, if they said he has won, and I said it is for me to decide whether I want to live under the control of this and he cannot individually control me. I won’t break the law, but what we want is the rule of law. What is Democracy? The government of the people and when you go to every country in the world you find the Lady of Justice blindfolded, with a sword and a scale And they practice Justice based on fact. So let’s wait until the outcome of the court for now. I don’t agree with going to say Congratulations. I will never. “BODE GEORGE WILL NEVER DO THAT”.
Many of those who read Chief Bode George’s response to the request that he should sheath the sword and congratulate Tinubu are not surprised.
This is because of Chief Bode George’s age long anger with Tinubu over the role he played in his travails, which saw him go to Kirikiri prison. In some of the early interviews Chief Bode George granted after he was released from prison, he revealed that it was Tinubu that made him go to jail. In several of the interviews, he revealed how he was not Guilty of the offence he was accused of committing. He pointed out so many irregularities concerning the case. How his offence which was a federal case was tried by the state and how Tinubu got him jailed for no just cause.
The Yoruba elders of Lagos State extraction who visited Bode George, last week on this reconciliation mission were surprised that they could not thaw the fridged bitterness that George has for Tinubu. Despite the high calibre of senior Lagos indigenes, who were determined to resolve the differences between Tinubu and George, the Chief Tajudeen Olusi-led reconciliation team could not make George, wholly swallow his bitterness against Tinubu.
Chief Bode George took advantage of the on-going presidential election dispute proceedings at the Court of Appeal (Tribunal) between the People’s Democratic Party (PDP’s) presidential standard bearer, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and the president-elect, Tinubu, to turn down the request of the Olusi-led reconciliation delegation to congratulate the President-elect. He reminded the team that visited him at his office in Lagos that it would be wrong for him to congratulate Tinubu. George remarked that doing so would tantamount to anti-party activity as his party the PDP was contesting the victory of Tinubu at the poll, at the tribunal. That was the reason cited by George for keeping in abeyance congratulatory message till the tribunal gives its verdict on the legal tussle between the PDP’s presidential candidate and the President-elect.
The serial victory of Tinubu-led party in governorship elections since 1999 in Lagos has been a bitter pill for the Chieftain of the PDP to swallow, however, the unkindest cut of all, that George could not gloss over or forget was his conviction for contract-spliting charge during the presidential term of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. The allegation is that Bode George, who was the Chairman of the Nigerian Port Authorities, (NPA) a federal parastatal, was dragged to court on charges of Contract spliting to avoid running foul of exeeding the statutory amount pegged by the law for his parastatal, the NPA.
To the surprise of Bode George, he was charged with the crime at a Lagos State Court, presided over by a judge appointed by the Lagos State Governor. Expectedly, as a the Chairman of a federal parastatal, who ran foul of the law in his office, he should have been taken to a federal high court to face his charges instead of being dragged to a state high court.
Bode George was convicted and sent to prison to purge himself of the crime of Contract spliting. He, however, appealed the court’s verdict. At the Appeal Court adjournment however, dogged the trial and proceedings of the case. Month after month ran into year after year. To the surprise of the man standing the trial, he could not get a reprieve till after more than two years facing agonising trial at the Appeal Court. NPA is a federal para-ministry body. The Economic Fraudulent Crime Commission (EFCC) that took Bode George to court is a federal agency. The man in the eye of the storm was then National Deputy Chairman of the PDP, the party that controlled the Federal Government.
As any other person who finds himself in a humiliating position, Bode George was devastated as he could not help himself. His party, the PDP, could not help him either or refuse to. After almost three years in the Appeal Court, the judge ruled that Bode George did not commit any crime known to the statute. The judge categorically said that there was nothing in the crime book called Contract Spliting. Thus, George once again became a free-man who has no tag of ex-convict on his neck.
How did Bode George run into the debacle of being tried in a Lagos State High Court for a crime alledgely committed in a federal parastatal by its Chief Executive that was supposed to be tried in a federal high court? Grapevine reveals that Chief Bode George on one occasion pointed finger at the President-elect, who was the governor of Lagos State during the trial of Bode George to be the masquerade who sent the NPA ex-Managing Director into a tormenting rain of trial and conviction in the state high court that sent George to prison.
That, perhaps, is why Bode George will find it difficult to sink his differences with Tinubu.
The tale of Tinubu’s involvement in the prison journey plight of Bode George is difficult to belive.
One, it strains imagination that a PDP controlled federal government would for any reason play any game in favour of Tinubu, an Alliance for Democracy (AD) governor in Lagos State.
Again partisan politicking would not tolerate or allow an opposition party member to demarket a chieftain of the party in power. This would never be allowed in a political arena where every party is on guard 24-7 to protect its interests.
-Tajudeen Adigun
08039180360
