Leader of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State, Chief Bode George, has declared immediate past Minister of State for Defence, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, “possessed and obsessed,” adding: “He needs immediate psychiatric treatment.”

Bode George was responding to biting attacks by Obanikoro, who accuses him of having rigged him out of the recent Lagos PDP governorship primaries in favour of Mr. Jimi Agbaje.

Replying Obanikoro, Bode George said in a statement issued yesterday in Lagos: “One has refrained from engaging Senator Musiliu Obanikoro despite his gross and alarmist provocations. I have deliberately remained distant and quiet, ignoring the stark obscenities of a desperate and obsessed man who is apparently incapable of absorbing the reality of his defeat by a well-bred and better man.

“For Obanikoro to claim in sheer ludicrousness that I, even remotely, identify with any intimations of violence is utter lunacy and blind, vindictive madness. Surely, Obanikoro is possessed and obsessed. He needs immediate psychiatric treatment. He is a desperate sinking man, grasping and thrashing in self inflicted chasm.

“What is the pedigree of this young man who has abandoned the typical African deference to elders? We know who sprung from violence and banditry. We know whose antecedents reek in noisome, vagrant, untidy ruffianism.

“Politics is not a do-or-die affair. No civilised person with impeccable pedigree will seek a tacky refuge in destruction and ruin simply because he has lost in a free and fair contest. Obanikoro should go quietly into that good night if he means well for Lagos. Enough of his desperate tantrums.”

•Photo shows Senator Obanikoro.