Former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Bode George, on Tuesday, said some chieftains sees the former ruling party as their personal empire due to selfish reasons.
George explainsed that some of those chieftains no longer respected the PDP’s leadership hierarchy as laid down by the party’s founding fathers.
He spoke during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily while speaking about the PDP and the role of a viable opposition.
According to George, PDP members should respect the the party’s hierarchy even if they were the most contributor.
He said: “When the PDP was in government, the structure was well defined, everybody at his level knew exactly what he was to do because of the way the founding fathers conceptualised and formed the political party.
“That made the PDP the foremost national party in the history of this country.
“They built a structure like meetings, the National Working Committee members, those are the ones managing the party on a daily basis, the NEC that is next to the national convention is like the role of the people in government which is well defined.
“The legislative arm was well defined, the Board of Trustees of the party well defined, so everybody knew what he was to do.”
The PDP chieftain insisted that the manner in which the PDP left government had a negative impact on the workings of the former ruling party.
“There was no question of majority versus minority, everybody belonged to the party, so that commitment, unity, and oneness was very well defined, but the moment we left government and the manner we left government had an impact on the workings of the government because naturally you want to know who is the head of the party and whoever was president was the leader of the party, the Chairman yes is the chief manager of the day-to-day running of the party with the Chairman of the BoT to moderate.
“But the moment we left the government, some people because of their personal ambition, refused to take orders from the National Chairman or the National Working Committee, they now saw the party as a personal empire for them.
“They would work out of meetings; even if you are the most contributor to the party, that doesn’t give you the powers; we lost it from that point.”