As political events gather momentum two years away from the 2027 general elections, the Social Democratic Party, SDP, presidential candidate in the 2023 elections, Prince Adewole Adebayo, in this interview speaks on a range of issues and argues that why the SDP should be party of choice in the next general elections. Excerpts:
Is the SDP in crisis or not given the conflicting signals from within?
Well, I don’t see any crisis in particular. The party is running normally. I think that now that many people are starting early to talk about 2027, there’s now a kind of unusual attention paid to something that’s a simple matter. We have not started using the word ‘crisis.’
I think there was a meeting at the end of NWC. There were 12 of them. They are supposed to be 15. And from what we gathered from both sides of the discussion, 11 people attended, including the chairman, secretary and the rest of them. Now, a majority of them say that they took a decision to fill three positions in the NWC and I think there is a minority that says that they were not happy with that decision. But we are not getting involved in that because I’m not a member of the NWC and no member of the NWC has come out to speak. So, I think they’re trying to work it out amongst themselves.
The national public secretary is a member of the NWC. He issued an official statement and there’s no other statements issued by the NWC since that time. So, we don’t want to get involved in it. They are very close. They are closely knit. And their chairman, Shehu Gabam, has been leading them quite well. They’re very united.
Most of the comments you get are comments that are coming from people who are not in the leadership. Some who have just joined and they like to hug the media, but I can tell you, even in this latest discussion, the national chairman has been quite mature. He’s not issued any statement. National secretary has been quite mature. He has not issued any statement. And I think from what I gather at their meeting, they are working things out.
There are now accusations that maybe the kind of disease affecting the PDP, and some of the other parties is going to affect your party. They are those who are already saying the opposition is in danger and that there are forces that are bringing down opposition. Are you aware of this fear?
Let’s get something clear. Many people or some people who have been in politics for a while may not be used to internal democracy. We, in the SDP, are used to it. If 11 people meet, 12 people meet, and they are tasked with a constitutional duty and they want to decide it, the majority of that body will decide it. That is not something strange to us. And if someone, maybe doesn’t like that decision, a member of that body, you can complain. It’s a party that is free. So we don’t have any crisis.
As for those who want to join us, everyone is welcome to join us. And I have zero anxiety regarding what will happen at the convention. I intend to run, and I believe that the party will choose the best of whoever contests at that time.
So, I’m not personally worried about that. But I don’t want you to assume that what is happening in PDP or elsewhere is happening to us. We are a democratic party. We don’t have a godfather. PDP is the Peoples Democratic Party. Are they democratic? They left the people behind and they are not democratic at all. That’s why they are in trouble.
In the event former Vice President Atiku joins your party of the 2027 presidential race, would you be stepping down him?
No, I would not. He has not said anybody should step down.
But, there are talks by some of his political associates who are already gravitating towards your party and I’m very sure that you have heard there is a possibility of SDP being used as a platform for the opposition.
Let me say something clearly, neither me, Vice President Atiku Abubakar, nor any other politician can use the SDP. The SDP belongs to Nigerians, nobody can use it. What can happen is that people who believe that the SDP is right and the ideologies are right, can come to the party and know that the party is open and democratic. You want to come in there and compete because you have the best chance of competing in a system that has not been bought over by anybody.
But, if you just think that the SDP is something you can use, it cannot be used. What you can do is, I like the SDP. I respect its ideology. I respect the work that has been done by those who are there. I want to join and contribute. That is okay. But, if someone is sitting down somewhere and wants to use something, we are not allowed to use it. But if you want to join us, you can join us.
What is clear, and I must respect that is that people are just speaking on his behalf. He knows what he wants to do. He has access to us. And we are not going to need a third party to tell us what he wants to do or all of that. When he wants to join the party, he will come to us and join the party. Until then, we don’t discuss him because he appears to know what he’s doing. He’s highly experienced. He’s been running for president for 32 years.
You’ve seen him and Nasir El-Rufai a few times. And Nasir El-Rufai is now a member of your party. Does that give you an inclination of the possibility because it looks like El-Rufai is leading a coalition talk?
First, all of us want to unseat President Tinubu in 2027. I don’t want to unseat him or any other person.
However, Atiku Abubakar is a Nigerian leader. He meets with various people. Some like to take photos with him and put it in the media. Some want to meet him quietly. He meets hundreds of people every day. So, he is not involved in any coalition led by somebody else. What I can tell you is that the SDP is led by Shehu Gabam and Dr. Olu Agunloye and many of your leaders. He has not given me an assignment to do coalition on his behalf. He has not given any assignment to my senior brother El-Rufai.
El-Rufai is not representing the SDP in any coalition. I am not. The SDP is waiting. The SDP is expressing its own understanding of how best to come together and remove this person who has caused the APC and non-performing president called Bola Tinubu. The SDP has its own plans. We are looking at various options. We realise that at the end of the option, you will need a political party that is viable.
Senator Abba Moro said the PDP is going into a coalition and the party has to lead it. Will the SDP go into a coalition the PDP is leading?
That is a question that Shehu Gabam can answer. That is a question that Dr. Olu Agunloye can answer. But, what I know from interacting with the party leadership, party membership, the SDP is too different from the PDP for us to be led by the PDP.
You will recall that our national chairman was one of those who left PDP and came to SDP. And the reasons he left remain the same. The party is united under one national chairman. The party is strengthening itself. From what I know now, we have 15 NWC members, and all of them are coming together. The PDP has had 16 years to prove to Nigeria what it is, what it means. And the PDP is in power in so many states. You can see whether they are doing well or not.
So, what I can say generally is that the SDP wants Nigeria to give us a chance. We are not going to be under any other political party.
Some people said it’s going to be an easy ride for Tinubu and the APC in 2027 if the opposition don’t get together. Perhaps that’s what El-Rufai is saying. To say they’re meeting in Kaduna in the night to see how they will send President Tinubu back to Lagos in 2027.
This kind of work is not done on the pages of newspapers. It’s not done in front of the media. First and foremost, el-Rufai is just another person like me. He has no authority of any political party to negotiate anything.
The leaders of the parties are meeting. The real people who have control over their political structures are meeting. It is not something that we want to discuss on the pages of newspapers. But everybody has their own style of operation.
What we understand, which is commonsensical political science, is that there must be one grand leader, challenger, against President Tinubu in 2027. That person, who is the candidate, must carry along a large swath of the disenfranchised and unhappy Nigerians. Now, politicians have many ideas about how to get there. The SDP is talking to people outside our party and I think we are making a lot of progress. But what you might be reporting on the personal travels of different people is not what is going on.
…What is going on is discussion along ideology, methodology, and accommodation. And when that time is right, what we are doing must be a surprise to the government in power.
So is there a plan to unseat Bola Tinubu?
.Clearly. But it’s not a series of collages of pictures of caucuses, where somebody paints caucuses. So, it’s underground… The talks are going underground. A lot of Nigerians are not aware. Yes, or you leave somebody at the airport. You take a photo together and say, yes, coalition. That is not infantile like that. It is something that is deep.
Because, in addition to having a genuine grouse on behalf of Nigerian people against the nonperforming government of President Bola Tinubu and APC, even we who are in the opposition have differences. And we must work out those differences first before we can go and challenge the person who is now there. But if we don’t work out our differences first, clearly, we will discover in the middle of the struggle that we are incongruous.
Is Peter Obi part of this conversation that you are having?
I don’t think he wants anybody to be talking about what he is doing because he appears to have more discipline than some other people. So, you don’t see him. Peter Obi goes quietly. He has meetings with people. He doesn’t expose himself to the media. He is a highly disciplined person. He knows what he is doing. He has his own plan.
Would you consider stepping down for Peter Obi?
Maybe because you are asking me if he wants to step down for me or step down for him. That will come later. But from what I see, I like what he is doing. He hasn’t said he doesn’t like what I am doing. He is serious-minded. He is having a meaningful discussion.
Whatever you are saying now, the defections are saying something different. Which is that? If you are saying that the APC and Bola Tinubu government have failed Nigerians, they are a lot of people who are moving into the APC from the other political parties. And it gives a sense that there is something good going on in the APC where everybody wants to be part of. Are you also planning to go there?
The suspects have moved. So, I don’t know what they are doing. You see, they are making it easier for the Nigerian people to identify where their problems are. What I see is that the people who are mismanaging the affairs of this country are in different political parties. But for some reason, to make it easier for Nigerians to identify them, all of them are now lining up with the same… You know how we do it in criminology where you have an identification parade.
So, all of them are going to APC so that it can be easy for Nigerian people to know that if you are part of a government that has been oppressing the people for the past 10 years, it is better for us to have all of them move towards APC instead of pretending to be in opposition. In fact, some of the people who are moving from APC to SDP, for example, have been advised to watch out for them. Whether they are Trojan horses. Whether they actually haven’t left the APC. They’re just coming to cause confusion on our side.
So, we are happier to have the people who have been poorly performing, mismanaging resources, who are not accountable for trillions of Naira and wasting the time of Nigerian people, let them move to APC so that when we are campaigning, we don’t have to be confused. We just point them where they are. But what is most important is that the opposition is talking seriously. It’s talking the way it should be done.
There are many heavy issues where we don’t agree with each other and we cannot come together to remove a government that is doing poorly if we ourselves don’t agree on what we are going to do when we get there. So, once that is worked out, I can tell you the people of Nigeria will be proud of the SDP and what we have brought about in 2027.
