Obasanjo? I’ve left him to God to judge – Bode George

I hate to sound like a scratched gramophone, but I am praying that Professor Jega will take a cursory look at the election in Lagos State to prevent this monumental fraud that took place. We have made representations and contested that there is a particular chap in Lagos INEC office who looks like a permanent […]

I hate to sound like a scratched gramophone, but I am praying that Professor Jega will take a cursory look at the election in Lagos State to prevent this monumental fraud that took place. We have made representations and contested that there is a particular chap in Lagos INEC office who looks like a permanent statue there because there was a time that any officer who has spent about two terms in one particular place was to be redeployed. Where did we get a lot of ballot papers flying all over the place? What I am saying is that my experience and age in this job  can be of help to the future of this country. We have no other nation than this. They are back in the pages of newspapers shouting. If you go into the details of what they do, you will see that it was a charade.

You know operationally, when you see the way things were positioned, you were to be there to make sure you collect your documentation on the day you are voting. You are there to make sure results are counted and given to you. What happens thereafter? Now, lots of media people thought that there was low turnout at the governorship election. The results that came out were unimaginable. The ballot papers that were used for governorship and House of Assembly elections in each case were not equal.  Ideally, it will be equal number of the total voters for the governorship and House of Assembly because they got two papers each. So, we should not run away with the euphoria that it is the best election. The elections were  manipulated with a lot of funds. How ballot papers got into the hands of all kinds of people is unbelievable. The total number of registered voters in Lagos is about 6.7million. What is the total number of people who actually voted, if you say there was a  low  turnout? If you recorded 1.7million votes for Fashola and the total number of votes for the House of Assembly was far less, what happened? Voided votes or people decided not to vote? You see, if we do not do a thorough post-mortem, the future of democracy in this country will be endangered.

But the same 1.7million voted during the presidential polls where President Jonathan scored over 1 million votes?

You know for the presidency, voters were each given  a ballot paper against two ballot papers for House of Assembly and governorship. At the end of the day, it is just one man two ballot papers. So, at the end of the day, the number of votes collated must be equal, isn’t it? But that was not the case. The first is Agege Local Government where 52,904 registered. The governor scored 57,000 votes. In Ajeromi, 81,000 registered,  but 101,000 ‘voted’ for the governor – there is  a difference of 20,000 votes. Where did they come from? It is either you credit 20,000 for those who voted for the House of Assembly or the governor was swinging?

Are you going to court to challenge the victory of the ACN, especially against the backdrop of the fact that your candidate congratulated the winner immediately after the announcement of the result?

Our candidate congratulated Fashola before we saw the result. He was acting, like you know, in the civility of him. He said, in his explanation to us, that he was trying to prevent the kind of outbreak that happened in the North. We have to go to court. There is very clear evidence of fraud. What happened in Alimosho during the House of Representatives election? The INEC is still battling over it, though the results have been announced. We asked INEC to bring out the ballot papers; they are trying to manipulate it. We asked for the unused ballot papers. I am saying all these, not because I want to cause trouble, but because if you don’t tell the truth, you run away with illegality and we will continue to preach illegality and in future, we are going to get into trouble because anything that is based on perfidy will end in perfidy.

So, when we see all they have done, we say,’Professor Jega, over to you. Do a thorough analysis of what went wrong.’ Who are those people? Where are the unused ballot papers so that it will help us in future? Jega should go and revisit the whole process and ensure that very minimal human input is allowed into the electoral process in future.

You mean the election was manipulated in favour of the incumbent Governor Raji Fashola?

Sure! The election was not free and fair. It was a huge joke. I ambegging Professor  Jega to prevent this kind of rubbish in future. I remember Professor Iwu had concluded the design of electronic voting and he demonstrated it to us. Jega must go now and perfect this electronic voting. I am not saying it is the best, but it is better than this human manipulation.

Can we say the PDP was also rigged out in Oyo and other South-West states?

I don’t know. If it is done properly and we lost, we will accept the results. Remember, in the presidential election, voters went all the way. They must have been dissatisfied with something. And it is that something and somebody that we must, honestly, sit back in the South-West and find out. There must be a forum to do a post-mortem. There must be reasons why these people lost woefully in 2003.They pretended to the people that they are the rejuvenation of Chief Awolowo. The Yorubas looked at them as  jokers and that they are not the true representation of Awolowo, either in policies, outcome or performance. They threw them out.

I want to put on record here that it was during Papa Awolowo’s  time that he said that someday in this Nigeria, an Ijaw man, would become the President of the country.

And that someday has come now. Thanks to people like Alex Ekwueme who configured this six-geopolitical representation. The reason why our democracy has survived till today is not because of our constitution, but because of the concept that the PDP evolved  – Turn by Turn Nigeria Limited

Some people believed that the PDP lost in Lagos because you imposed Ade Dosunmi as the flag bearer of the party?

 

When I hear that, my heart bleeds. Imposition? Me? That is arrant nonsense! They are so devilish. Didn’t you cover the primary? Rather than they telling the truth, they chose the path of fear and perfidy. They lost at the primary, so hell must let loose. They are even more concerned about what they can get from the party rather than what to give the party. Some of them who lost massively joined other parties. Owolabi Salis, one of them, was based in New York. He has seen the civility. They can go around and lie. They are political prostitutes. These are people like a rolling stone;  they gather nothing. The primary was conducted in an open forum. People voted and the votes were counted, one by one. We are not like the ACN that has an emperor and whatever he decides, that is the end. Didn’t you see our national primaries? You saw how people voted one by one and they were counted. It is a blatant lie that Dosunmu was imposed. It was in Lagos he started his primary school. You can go to Ife and Ibadan to confirm his certificates. He is placed before the people and they said he was imposed by Bode George from prison. In our party, once you get elected, you are the boy-boy of the electorate. Electorate must, in principle, be your employer.

Following Jonathan’s victory at the poll, don’t you think the issue of zoning has been defeated?

Like what I told you, what made our democracy to have survived for 12 years without any break? This is the first time in the history of this country that an Ijaw man would become the president. It is like continuity. We have made democracy work.  Even if we are tumbling, we are going along because nobody feels cheated. Now, from the original concept of the founding fathers of our party, once a position goes to the North, the others must go to the South. And when it changes, whatever comes to the South would now go back to the North. That is the real concept. There are six geopolitical zones;  they normally look at President, Vice President, the Chairman of the party, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Speaker and Senate President. Once that is done, the party goes on to add Deputy Senate President, Leader of the House. These are Executive positions within the House. Yes, the zoning thing has started. Ideally, once the Presidency has come down, everything that was done before must go up, everything that was up must come down. You see, this is not the ideal situation. The way the President emerged, you know he must continue because a lot of arguments went with it.

Jonathan’s victory in the North brought us from the country that has existed. We have attained nationhood now with the elections. If you go to our history, you will know that somebody from the minutest of the minutest minority was voted en masse.

What is your take on the former President’s claim that he was cajoled to attend the thanksgiving service held for you when you were released from prison?

I was unjustly and unfairly rail-roaded into jail by the Lagos State government. Did I ever work for Lagos State government? We were charged for contract splitting. We were charged that we disobeyed a federal government’s circular. The National Assembly has no law on disobedience of government circular, which means there is no law from the federal government that we committed this offence. And, secondly, I was a part-time chairman of the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA)  and,  for God’s sake, NPA is next to the NNPC in terms of revenue generation. The first charge was contract splitting. I was the chairman of  the board. I  did not and would never originate contracts. Contracts were originated from the user department and it has five different levels before it comes to the board. There was a Director of Engineering who presented the memo to the whole board. At the board meeting, he read out his memo. As chairman, I conducted the meeting, made comments and,  at  the end, everybody approved. Even the ministry’s representative was there. You know, the board meeting was quarterly, meaning that if you finish, if you have done anything wrong, it would have gone to the ministry before the next board meeting and the minister has the right to ask the Managing Director to stop.

They said there was a circular. We didn’t see any circular. If you disobey circular in the ministry, disciplinary action would be taken against you, not that you would go to jail. They presented the circular. What did the management recommend? They said N10 million. What did the board approve?  They said N10 million. So, what did you see? That is one. The other one was that the approving level had been changed by the Federal Executive Council. The guideline that we saw, which is what is still in use in NPA is that the Managing Director had approving level of N10 million and below. The management has approving level of up to N25 million. From N25 million and above to N50million and above by the board while N50 million and above  by the Federal Ministry and over N100 million by the Federal Executive Council.

The circular they said we disobeyed says group, parastatals like NNPC, EFCC etc and  their Managing Directors can approve only N1million. You know,  the meaning of this, for an organization like the NPA, the board would perpetually be sitting in NPA approving the daily use of diesel for use of vessels. If we are that greedy, we would prefer to be there to be approving everything at will. As I am talking to you now, the circular that they accused us of is what they are still using in NPA till today. I told them, today it is Bode George. If it is not a politically convoluted conspiracy, what is it? That is one. Number two, they now brought us, because there are no federal laws, Bola Tinubu has made that law specifically for us and the EFCC brought us to Lagos. Aondokaa, the former Minister of Justice, accepted and we were now tried by the Lagos State Attorney General, convicted by the laws of Lagos State. We were convicted by a law made by the State Assembly for federal officers because we were part time chairmen of federal institutions.

My going to prison was a good education for me. I didn’t become a cripple there. I didn’t get any disease there. I had enough time to ruminate, to think about the ills of this country, the gold that is in abundance in this country and the beauty of the creation of Nigeria. There is no part of the country that does not have good natural resources. All we need to do is to harness and forget about lies. While I was there, for one day,  I didn’t go to any hospital. I was never sick. And I came out as a Christian with the kind of training that I have, decided to go to my church. My friends joined me .Nobody told my mother until a day I left prison. She was amazed, but people told her that she should remember that her son is a politician. We now went to church to thank God for my life; to thank him for His grace. Some people thought  that it was madness. They are the people that are mad because they expected me to go to a shrine. Where else would I have gone? I chuckled when I heard them say we were celebrating criminality. I would never forget that in my life.

Even Obasanjo said he was cajoled to attend the event?

It sounded as if I was in another planet when I heard that. Cajoled! Cajoled? When Obasanjo left prison, where did he go to thank God? Was it not to the Baptist church that he went, clutching his Bible in his hand? He told the congregation what happened to him in the prison. And he had  the nerves to thank the Almighty God. What a language! Having thought about it, the only thing I can say is that you can only trust the Almighty God. I was shocked!. How. It means I stole N85billion in NPA? I have left him to our creator to judge.

But he is your friend?

In our culture, we don’t talk ill of the elderly. My mother was so angry that she  asked me if it was the same man I was always telling  her that I was going to meet all the time.

Have you met him since then?

For  what? If he were my age-mate, I would know what to say. I would still repeat what I said: I have left him to God…