*Wrong governance policies took Nigeria backwards by 10 years, he insists
Prince Adewole Ebenezer Adebayo has become a household name shortly after he contested the general elections in 2023 as a presidential candidate on the platform of Social Democratic Party (SDP). In this interview, the lawyer-businessman turned politician, lamented the messy situation the country is presently enmeshed in due to the wrong policies of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration and the ruling party, which he noted, took the country back by 10 years. EZE CHUKWU captures the excerpts of the interview.
How do you want to go about achieving your ambition of planting 100 million trees in your lifetime?
Well, you start by taking action. Today, May 12th alone, we’ve planted 100 trees. Look at how many steps you take in your lifetime, how many times you blink your eyes, how many times you breathe in and out. So, all these are biological actions. So, it’s about taking action. Before you know it, the number will accumulate. A hundred million sounds like a big number, but if you take steps every day, it’s achievable.
Late last year, conversations and discussions, permutations, calculations and even multiplications and subtractions started popping up as regards the 2027 election. And then the idea and talks of coalition emerged along the line, and then the defection rush came to dominate the political scene, where bigwigs from opposition parties started defecting, moving from one party to another, but most of them defected to the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC).
When oppositions raised eyebrows about this scale of defections, the presidency responded that the opposition members were defecting because President Bola Tinubu is providing good leadership. Do you agree?
Number one, where is the real opposition in Nigeria? The people that you call opposition are establishment politicians who are changing from one establishment party to the other. So, someone who is in PDP cannot say that he is in opposition, because after the APC, the PDP has the highest number of governors, senators, House of Representatives members and Houses of Assembly members. And even in the APC government of President Tinubu, PDP has ministers in it. So, they are moving from one room to the other in the same house. That is not relocation; that is just mere re-arrangement within the house. So, I am yet to see anybody who is a genuine opposition politician, who is in opposition because they don’t like the ideology and methodology and the outcome of these establishment politicians. Such people won’t be able to move.
For us in the SDP, we have seen a lot of people moving to us as well. I think more people are moving to the SDP than they are moving to the APC. And we welcome those who are moving to the SDP, but we always ask ourselves the questions: if you move to us, has your mind moved to us? Do you now believe in what we believe? If you are part of those who have been problematic to Nigeria, are you willing to change? If you are, you’ve had policies that hurt the poor, you have done injustice and you have misused public resources. The mere fact that you have changed from APC to SDP, should we forget about all of that and should we not address these issues? So, we don’t count governors, senators, former this, or former that.
We are trying to mobilise Nigerians to change politics. Changing parties without changing politics is of no importance to the poor man. APC is ruling and the poor man is crying. As far as the poor man is concerned, it is not the logo of the party that is inflicting the punishment on them. It is the people in the party. Why is it that in a country rich and full of resources like ours, poverty is increasing, insecurity is increasing, injustice is increasing, corruption is increasing, and underdevelopment is getting deeper? That is the question.
There is this fear that Nigeria could be tilting towards a one-party state. Some observers are foreseeing a possible implosion within the APC. What are your reactions to these?
There cannot be a one-party state in Nigeria because there’s no one system of welfare. There’s no one system of employment. There’s no one system of security. The benefits of politics are flowing in the direction of politicians. And a welfare politician changing from party to party cannot say he’s in the same coalition with the poor, who cannot pay their children’s school fees, who cannot sleep well at home, who cannot keep a job. And if they have a job, the pay from that job cannot satisfy one percent of their needs. So, there cannot be a one-party state when this is not a welfare state, when it is a selfish accumulation of money for the few who are in the ruling class and the wretched people who are on the streets.
How can people who are standing in the rain waiting for a car to carry them, be a one-party system with those who are using multiple private jets paid for by the public? It is not possible. So, if all the governors go to one party, Nigeria will choose a new set of governors. If all the senators go to one party, Nigeria will choose another set of senators.
What makes a one-party state is the people thinking that they don’t need any other party outside the one that is ruling, or people being forced by law not to create another party.
After the last election, we were offered many positions in the government of President Tinubu. I said, no, let us sustain our SDP. Let us provide the alternative. So, that’s an alternative. We have good plans regarding security. You must have police at every level of government, so that local problems can be dealt with locally. We’ve brought a plan for agriculture, which would have eliminated seeing any herdsman in the bushes or on the roads. We’ve brought a plan for full employment of the youth, so that you won’t find anyone going into banditry and all of that.
So, there cannot be a one-party state, when our politics is not based on one set of ideas.
Your party’s attention is on how to improve the living standard of the people. But in 2023, the people you are focused on, voted for President Bola Tinubu. Do you think people make the right decision when it’s very crucial?
Do you know the party that got the highest votes in the last election? The party that got the highest votes is called Apathy Party because we had 89 million voters; all the voters that came out were around 23 million or less. So, the majority did not show up and that is why our government is apathetic. Our politics is apathetic.
I want you to understand something. It takes more effort, more resources, more sacrifice for you to go to INEC and register to vote. But to go and vote is easier. Why do you think people who sometimes go to the INEC office three times, four times, before they can be registered; stay like six hours on the queue to ensure that they register and after that, will still go back to pick their cards, but will not come out on election day to vote?
You cannot say they are not interested in the democratic process. But they are not happy with the choices and they are not involved. That is why we are focused on the people.
President Tinubu, the combined votes that he got is less than the population of Lagos State. It’s less than the population of Kano State. In fact, all the presidential candidates combined together, all the votes they got is about the population of Lagos State, just one state in Nigeria.
It shows that the majority was left behind and that is what the SDP is working on. For example, in Akure North and Akure South, even in the last two months, 30,000 people have joined the SDP. It will not make as much news as if a commissioner in the state, one single commissioner joins the SDP, then the noise comes. But that commissioner has only one vote. So, the 30,000 people who have been joining don’t make news. When you invite the media to come and cover it, it won’t make the bulletin.
So, what we are doing is to make sure that gradually and steadily, the Nigerian people move to somebody who is going to come and save us. In a true democratic system, the majority cannot suffer. How can the majority suffer in a majority-based decision-making process? That is the reason we are paying keen attention to ensuring that nobody can take advantage of the people anymore.
Nigerians want to know how strong the SDP is from the local level to the state to unseat the APC in 2027?
The SDP is as strong as Nigerians are. Let me tell you one fact you need to know. SDP is not strong. It is not designed to be strong. What needs to be strong is the determination of Nigerians to change the government because the party can only be strong when people join it. So, the party is not inherently strong. There’s nothing strong about the party. It’s an ordinary collection of Nigerians who wish better for their country
So, we’re not strong. We’re underdogs. We’re ordinary people. We have carpenters, tailors, Okada riders, farmers. We’re an ordinary people’s party. But who are the same people who rally around and produce Abiola as president? Yes, the same people who, when the big people realize that, oh, this Abiola, though a rich man, has been taken over by the poor people and is now championing farewell to poverty and is going to lead these poor people to take over the government, they cancel the election. And many lost their lives. I remember myself being chased with tear gas by soldiers all over Ilupeju and Mushin in Lagos.
I joined the SDP in 1991 when I was 19 years old. And I have been in SDP even when the military banned the party. We remained the same. And after that, when the military system ended, PDP came, APC came and others. I didn’t join any of them. We kept fighting to ensure that the SDP got registered again. Through the effort of Chief Falae, Osoba, and many people, the party was registered again. And when I came back to politics, I joined the same party. So, I’m a Nigerian who has joined only one party in his entire life. I joined when I was 19. I’m now 52 plus. So, I’m going to die inside that party.
What endeared you to that party at such a young age of 19?
Babangida created two political party systems. They said a little to the left SDP, a little to the right NRC, and the SDP manifesto captivated me because it says that the way to fight poverty and to develop a country is by using the collective resources of the country to improve the welfare of the people, build infrastructure, create employment and give social services like education, health and other services. But at the end of it, it said liberalize the economy and let each person, let businesses take over. It’s not the business of the government to create jobs for people, and so on and so forth.
If you look at APC and SDP, and PDP, that is PDP first and then APC next, they have implemented that NRC approach. So, the government will take care of the politicians and God will take care of the people.
That’s why you find our people go to churches and mosques to find succour, while the politicians go to government houses and Central Bank to find their own solution. So, that is what attracted me to the party. Those are the same ideals that made Abiola lose his life. It wasn’t that Abiola was looking for how to ride caravans, or how to live in a big house for the first time. Abiola’s personal house is bigger than the Aso Rock Villa. Abiola’s personal jet is bigger than the presidential jet.
But he decided to die, he stayed there and they killed him, just to let them know that the power must come back to the people. So, the current political class want you to forget that there was a time in this country when the richest black man known at that time decided to die in detention.
Now they are all apologising, saying SDP was right, Abiola was right, Abiola was President, a GCFR, and all of that. Praising Abiola who has died and abandoning the poor he died for is hypocrisy. If you go to Tinubu’s hometown, you will see poor people there. If you go to his extended family, you will see that they are struggling to pay their rents too; to access energy; with education. So, the government is not working for anybody. Meet the senator representing Akure, has he been able to solve any problem either in Akure North, Akure South, Ondo, or in Idanre? Where has he solved any problem? Tinubu’s time will come and go and you would ask, ‘what has happened in the last four years?
Are you saying that Tinubu hasn’t done anything?
Even your own voice tells me that Tinubu hasn’t helped you at all because from the strength of your voice, you realise that you’re only asking that question as a professional. The answer lies in your question. Your take-home pay cannot pay your bills.
So, you know that your station is not relying on power supply. I’m sure you have got an auxiliary power supply funded by yourself, from your earnings or advertisements. You know that your advertisers want to advertise with you, but their capital is not enough to take care of that.
If you are leading a road show or travelling along the street, you cannot travel 100 meters without encountering 100 cases of destitution. Where were you 10 years ago when APC took over from PDP, and where are you now? Are you 10 steps ahead, or 10 steps backward, or 10 steps on the same spots?
So, this is what we are letting people know. It is not just when people come to our party. We are not interested. We are interested in what happens to the poor. Tinubu’s government has nothing for you. It has no welfare system for you.
No job offer for you.
You can see Buhari now; he has not left power for more than to three years and he’s already being seen as sympathetic to some people who want to leave the party. Once you come out, they shut the door, you don’t hear it again. Nigerian politics is like a nightclub in the neighbourhood. Only those who are at the nightclub will hear the music. But outside the nightclub, nobody hears the music. So the music of money, the music of sharing, the music of billions, the music of diversion, the music of estacodes, music of contract, is only being heard inside Aso Rock and the government house.
You actually have mentioned that you’re having defectors from other parties to join the SDP, former Kaduna State Governor, Major Hamza al-Mustafa also joined with a host of others. But are these people and all other entrants willing to be debriefed on the ideologies of the party and willing to pick them up?
That is the battle we’re having. It’s an engagement because you must have captured some of the engagement exchanges in the media. As people are coming in, we’re telling them, hey, watch your step. You’re on holy ground. Here, we don’t cheat the poor.
Here, we don’t lie to the people. We’re not part of any conspiracy to cheat the poor.
So sins are not forgiven in SDP?
No, sins against the people can only be forgiven by the people. And for you to do that, you have to first confess to the people. And you have to first purge yourself. You cannot use stolen money that you got where you were before to come and do politics in the SDP. You can’t change parties without changing your attitude. You cannot be a cheat in APC, and come to SDP and start also be a cheat by doing parallel congress, wrong registration, lying and deceit and all of that.
Now, Nasir El-Rufai that joined the SDP is also in talks with Atiku Abubakar to champion a coalition. Is this not going to be a problem for the SDP?
It’s not a problem to the SDP because if you go and ask a former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, he will answer you correctly. Nasir el-Rufai has not been mandated by SDP to talk to anybody. But he’s a charming fellow. All our engagement with the coalition people has been ideological engagement. We’ve been asking them questions, sending them questionnaire upon questionnaire.
What is your belief in this? What is your attitude to how SDP believes in this? You supported Tinubu on subsidy before. So now, do you agree that the policy is wrong? We engage in all of this. We do that all the time. And I’m doing that. Our national chairman is doing that. Our national secretary is doing that.
Many people in our working committee are doing that. Our youth groups are doing that.
We’re not going to be part of any elite group pretending to be fighting each other and not playing for both sides. So, you cannot defeat the reigning champion if the reigning champion is also the one choosing the coach or the challenger.
