Chief Bode George, a former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Deputy National Chairman, says it is not fair to attribute all the challenges facing the country to President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
George said this during his address to the nation, titled “My Thoughts on The State of Our Country in the Last 25 Years: A Time to Chart A New Direction”, on Thursday in Lagos.
The PDP chieftain said an honest assessment of the performance of the present administration could only be done after the president had spent some more time in office.
George, a member of the PDP Board of Trustees (BOT) and a well-known political foe of Bola Tinubu, said it was wrong to look at the present situation through the prism of politics, adding that the challenges confronting the country were far beyond the confines of partisan politics.
“This is not the time for political actors to be subjective in their thinking and actions because the challenges before us are far beyond the confines of partisan politics.
“They (politicians) are now blaming the Bola Tinubu administration which has spent about one year in office. Government administration is not a hundred-meter dash race
We will advise and condemn so that in a year’s time, we can assess the methodology and performance of the government. Pitiably, some Nigerians have resorted to a blame game,” he said.
He, however, urged Tinubu to also come out and tell Nigerians the true position of things in the country.
George said: “This is not the time to play party or regional politics. Nigerians have suffered enough and they want fast results.
This is the time for Tinubu to rejig his economic team. There are many Nigerians – from the North to the South – who can offer him economic advice that can turn this country around,” he said.
According to him, Nigeria is often referred to as the Giant of Africa but that the country has not lived up to the description since the return of democracy in 1999.
He said that 25 years after the military returned to the barracks, the country could not be said to have fared well.
The PDP chieftain said that Nigeria could only regain its rightful place in the comity of nations through the collective determination of leaders and followers.
We can achieve this if we start to redefine our value system, to rejig and restructure the various anomalies that presently hinder the greater possibilities of the Nigerian union,” he said.
He said that successive leaders had failed to grapple with the challenges of nation-building, adding that the country was currently facing an existential crisis.
“The excessive centrality of political power holds everyone down to an unhealthy indolence, strips the states of individual growth and development, disallows free-willing local initiatives, strangles fairness and equity in the larger Nigerian union, inflames tension and fissiparous tendencies,” he said.
He said that the nation needed to urgently do something about “our so-called federalism” which can be described as a ‘unitary or despotic federalism’.
“Obviously, the Nigerian federation is skewed, distorted and should be restructured for equity and fairness to prevail,” he said.
According to him, Nigeria can be a better place when all citizens eschew ethnic jingoism, sectarian bias and crass nepotistic agenda.
He said that the 1999 constitution was not working and should jettisoned.
So, the earlier we have a people’s constitution, the better for all of us. We have been operating this constitution since 1999 and it has taken us nowhere.
“It is only a fool who will be doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result,” he said.
Calling for state police and devolution of power to federating units, George said the government must prioritise the fight against epileptic power supply and hunger.
(NAN)