Lere Olayinka, media aide to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike, on Thursday said ex-Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Bode George, should borrow a bit of maturity that comes with old age from those with whom he ruled Nigeria 38 years ago.
Olayinka said George should take a rest and “stop embarrassing himself and the Yoruba race by persistently dancing naked in the market place of politics”.
In a statement he signed, Olayinka said, “For someone who was Military Governor of the old Ondo State in 1988 (38 years ago), some level of decorum and maturity is expected.
“But it is becoming an embarrassment the way a man like Chief Bode George, who should be acting like an elder statesman, is jumping from one television station to the other to malign people who are young enough to be his children.”
Olayinka, who challenged Bode George to show what his leadership of the PDP in Lagos State has produced, added that “Since 1999, he has not won his polling unit for the PDP.”
“Unlike Lagos State, we have had PDP governors in Ogun, Ondo, Ekiti, Oyo and Osun states. Methinks rather than doing ‘cho cho cho’ all the time, Bode George needs to tell Nigerians why PDP has remained at the sideline in the politics of Lagos State since 1999.”
Admonishing Bode George to begin to “act like an elder that he is supposed to be,” Olayinka said; “Even if a man was over spoilt, rascally, too playful and dull as a child, at 81, he should have outgrown those vices.”
He said; “In Yorubaland, it is a strict cultural and traditional rule to respect elders. However, this respect is not automatic, it is conditional and the major condition is that an elder must avoid disrespecting himself.
“That is the reason it is said that ‘an elder who chooses to tie corn to his waist and run around will have fowls chasing and making mockery of him.
“Today, who among those eminent Nigerians who served as Military Governors with Bode George between 1988 and 1990 are doing ‘political we no go gree’ up and down, jumping from one media house to another to lie?
“Even in the PDP, who among those who served in the party’s National Working Committee with him is talking anyhow in the media as he is doing?”