Former president Olus-egun Obasanjo Friday said he was deceived into participating in the elaborate reception ceremony recently held in Lagos in honour of the former National Vice Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Bode George, after completing his two-year jail term.

While addressing newsmen in Abeokuta , Ogun State , Obasanjo said his attendance at the ceremony was an error.

He said George sent a passionate message to him few days before his release from prison urging him to attend a church thanksgiving service restricted to family members.

"I believe that whenever any family is giving thanks in the church or in the mosque and I'm invited, I will go there.

"Whether it is for marriage, for burial, house warming or christening a child, I will go. But when I got to the church, the atmosphere I found was more than a family affair. And I even took the opportunity to ask the state PDP Chairman if it was a PDP affair and he told me that it was not a PDP affair and that it was hijacked by area boys."

Obasanjo added: "As a party that is trying to form a government in Lagos State; as a party that formed government at the national level and in at least 27 states, we would be celebrating criminality because whatever we may say, the reason Bode went to prison should be condemned by everybody.

"I have condemned it. George did not go to prison for political offence. If he had been sent to prison for political offence, then he comes back, all his political associates may get round him. But in this case, PDP as a party must dissociate itself from celebrating criminality. PDP must do something noble and wholesome."

Asked to comment on his statement in Lagos recently that the contest for control of the state was a do-or-die, Obasanjo said: "Whichever one, I think it is not good. I went to a campaign and I sang; how can I vote and you steal my vote and you will expect me to accept that."

He continued: "If you want to do, go and do; if you want to die, go and die. I stand by what I mean and what I say. If I vote, my party's vote must not be stolen. We had suffered it before. In 2003, PDP won in Lagos and that was stolen.

"Now, PDP will not stand for stolen election. They have moved from direct stealing to stealing through the judiciary and you said that I should accept that? Aren't you part of that; don't you know that? Go there and vote".