Bode George, the former deputy national chairman (south) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has claimed that Nigeria might not have remained stable if Atiku Abubakar had been elected president in 2023.

Speaking on Friday during an interview on Arise TV’s The Morning Show, George argued that Nigerians would not have accepted Abubakar, who is from the north, as the successor to Muhammadu Buhari, another northerner.

George noted that Nigeria’s political tradition suggests that the presidency should shift to the south after a northern president’s tenure, a practice that did not occur in the 2023 election, where President Bola Tinubu, a southerner from Lagos, ultimately won.

“If Atiku had won — I would have stayed in my house because I knew that for real in the future he would collapse. This country would never accept [it],” George said.

“If he had won that election, do you think this country would have been stable? Because someone from the north (Buhari) had just completed eight years, and our own norm is that after those eight years, the presidency should come to the south.”

George also criticised the PDP’s internal workings, claiming that the party’s zoning strategy was manipulated to benefit Atiku in securing the presidential ticket for the 2023 election.

He suggested that this manipulation was the cause of the party’s problems, including the withdrawal of support by several party members after Abubakar won the primary.

“The moment we meddled with it, altering the whole process to suit Atiku, that’s where the problem began. For us to act as if there was not an issue, we are just wasting time,” George added.

The PDP faced internal unrest before the 2023 primary election, with party members, including a group of five governors, demanding that the presidential ticket be zoned to the south, in line with the party’s rotation system.

This demand grew louder as Buhari, a northerner, was finishing his second term.

The nomination of Atiku as the PDP’s presidential candidate ultimately contributed to the crisis within the party, according to George.