Former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olabode George, has called for a strong opposition, through constructive criticism, to ensure President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his party move Nigeria forward.

The PDP chief also warned his party against going into oblivion, like the defunct All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP). George spoke, yesterday, in Lagos while urging the leadership of his party to look inward to examine what went wrong that made it perform below average in the last general elections.

He said: “I want to appeal to you; it is not a matter of joining his party; we must have a solid opposition to put them, the APC members, on their toes, and as long as I live, in the next four years, that will be the role we are going to play. And it is good for them because everybody shouldn’t be telling the APC and the President that what you are doing is fantastic. You know the noisemakers, who are saying what the president is doing is fine, will be the first to condemn the president when he is out of office.”

“The President is not a young man; he knows whether people are polishing him and pretending that he is the best fellow. He should watch his back.

I owe President Bola Tinubu now is to forget about the differences between us; this nation must grow, and when we are in opposition, we must keep them on their toes for the good of our nation. That is the responsibility that I foresee as an opposition party.”

George enumerated the benefits of a strong opposition, saying: “If there is no strong opposition, the APC government will take this country for a ride, but when we give them constructive criticism, they will think twice before doing things. They will say, before this party comes and slams us, let us consider all options, not a one-sided option,” he said.

George called for frantic effort on the part of PDP leaders to resuscitate, reposition the party. He warned that any attempt to sweep the party’s problem under the carpet would spell doom for the party and further warned that this was not the right time for anybody to be scheming for positions in the party as, according to him, there must be a solution to the challenges facing the party first.

He added: “It is human to make mistakes; when it happens like this, that we got an uppercut in the struggle for Nigeria, yes, the most sensible thing to do is to go back and do an in-depth analysis of what we did wrong and what we did right, and then clean up the Augean stable and reposition the party for the future.”