A member of the Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Bode George, says the party will meet its end if former Vice President Atiku Abubakar secures the party’s 2027 presidential ticket.
“If he (Atiku) picks it (PDP’s ticket), that is the end of this party. If he picks it by manipulation which was what was done the last time, we will not accept it,” Bode George said on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Monday, April 14.
Atiku has been in a race to become Nigeria’s president for over three decades and has been the presidential candidate of different parties six times.
Atiku recently championed an inter-party alliance that birthed a coalition on Thursday, March 20, 2025. Atiku, alongside former Anambra governor Peter Obi, ex-Kaduna governor Nasir El-Rufai, amongst others, announced the coalition as an attempt to oust incumbent President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
However, in a twist, PDP governors on Monday, April 14, 2025, rejected the coalition spearheaded by Atiku, ruling out any plan by the party for mergers or coalition.
Speaking during the television programme on Monday, Bode George applauded the PDP governors for rejecting the coalition led by Atiku.
George said Atiku has not shown himself to be a leader of the party because he has not waded into the intra-party squabbles that have befallen the party in recent times.
Bode George said: “No, if he is the leader of the party, he would have waded into it (the crisis).
“The fact that he was the presidential candidate of the party at the last election doesn’t mean he is a bona fide, fixated leader of the party. If he’s running for his private interest, it’s different from the interest of the party.”
Asked whether Atiku could be the flag bearer of the PDP in 2027, the PDP chieftain said, “He cannot be. This is what I am saying. There was eight years in the north, there should be eight years in the south. That is the dictate, that is the doctrine of the PDP. I can’t say he cannot contest; he can go to any party because it is his constitutional right but as far as we are concerned, he cannot be the candidate.”
“There are rules. Section 7, Sub-section 3C of our constitution. It states that once the presidential candidate has been in the south for eight years, it had to go to the north. And after another eight years, it would come to the south. Is Atiku from the South-West, South-South or South-East?” George asked.
The PDP chieftain said he equally doesn’t want Tinubu to be re-elected in 2027, adding that he wants his party to win the next election with a southern candidate.