The presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Dr. Adewole Adebayo, has said terrorism should attract the harshest punishment, declaring that, if elected president, he would make tackling insecurity a top priority from his first day in office.
Adebayo, who spoke during an interview with The AUTHORITY on his recently unveiled presidential blueprint, said insecurity was not a “herculean task” and blamed the persistence of terrorism, kidnapping and other violent crimes on alleged complicity within government and failures in the management of the country’s resources.
“From my first day in office, terrorism becomes a crime punishable by bullets on your forehead,” he said.
He argued that the government possessed sufficient capacity to track and apprehend terrorists and criminals, pointing to the cases of Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho, as examples of the government’s ability to locate people beyond Nigeria’s borders.
“Which forest is Nigeria? There’s no forest anywhere,” Adebayo said, questioning why terrorists could remain at large when the government had demonstrated its capacity to locate wanted individuals abroad.
The SDP candidate also alleged that insecurity was sustained by three categories of actors within or connected to government.
According to him, the first category comprises those pursuing political or ethnic agendas aimed at dominating or destabilising particular communities.
He said the second category was made up of people exploiting insecurity for economic interests, particularly in areas with valuable mineral resources.
The third, he alleged, comprises officials who may not directly participate in kidnappings or other crimes but benefit financially from the insecurity crisis.
Adebayo maintained that the government could not effectively fight insecurity if those responsible for combating criminality were themselves benefiting from the crisis.
“You cannot compete with government. You can only cooperate with government,” he said.
On poverty, Adebayo said his blueprint was designed to eradicate rather than merely manage poverty, describing this as a constitutional responsibility of government.
“What we are saying is ‘a farewell’ because people should understand from the beginning that ours is not a plan on how to manage poverty, but how to abolish it,” he said.
He identified food, housing, healthcare, education and employment as key indicators of poverty, arguing that government must create conditions in which Nigerians can sustainably afford basic necessities.
He said a Nigerian who could afford food, decent housing with basic amenities, quality healthcare, quality education for their children and gainful employment could hardly be described as poor.
Adebayo rejected the argument that poverty was primarily linked to the high cost of petroleum products, describing the analysis as “very weak.”
Instead, he attributed poverty to what he described as government waste, misplaced priorities, corruption, injustice and a distortion of the purpose of government.
He argued that Nigerians surrendered the country’s resources to government because the government was expected to deploy them for the welfare and security of the people.
