Best Candidate will Emerge at PDP’s Convention, Says Bode George

Onyebuchi Ezigbo

Former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olabode George has assured Nigerians that the party would pick the best amongst its presidential aspirants at its convention taking place in Abuja at the weekend.

Speaking on ‘The Morning Show’ on Arise News Channels, yesterday, George who is the leader of PDP in Lagos State said notwithstanding the misgivings over the decision of the party to throw the contest for the presidential ticket open, he believed that the leaders of PDP would still use wisdom to try to arrive at a consensus presidential candidate.

George said: “I want to assure you that our party will do the best humanly possible to make sure that we will direct our minds and select and elect acceptable personality who will love Nigeria and who will see Nigeria as his home and who will not be a fanatical person. He would be a person who see the commonality in us amongst the tribes of this nation.

“We are in a state of quagmire. We are in a dire state and when I listened to your analysis and you talked about money and sectional interests, I want to plead that this coming election should focus on issues, like that of security, economy and social services,” he said.

George said this was not the time people would come to the convention ground and only think about the money they would receive, stressing the need for delegates to analyse the situation and access each aspirant properly before casting their votes.

He also said Nigerians would need to go into prayers to ask for God’s Intervention to ensure that things go well with the 2023 election.

“I believe very much in prayers and we must also need to fast so that at the end the day God will direct our minds to the right person,” he said.

The PDP chieftain said as far as he was concerned, all the aspirants under the PDP are credible, sensible, educated and qualified to contest the party’s primary election.

Commenting further, he said: “I want to plead that this election is so critical, please Nigerians don’t be apathetic, come out and vote.  We will do our utmost best to be sincere and transparent, there will be live coverage of our convention to show Nigerians that in our own party, we can manage ourselves.

“We should be able to show that we are better managers and that if they can trust us that we will able to use the resources of this country for their betterment.”

To his party men and women, George said:  “Though we might disagree but we should never be disagreeable”

According to the PDP leader, the leadership of the party in Lagos State is currently consulting with the delegates, saying very soon, they would come out with a clear position on the choice of presidential candidate.