Nigerians must be determined to vote out APC in 2027- Adebayo
Prince Adewole Ebenezer Adebayo has become a household name shortly after he contested in 2023 as the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party SDP. In this interview with journalists during the week, he bears his mind on Tinubu’s administration, coalition politics, gale of defections and other salient issues. Excerpts
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 is May 12, and it’s just 10am and we’ve planted 100 trees today. 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. Even when you are sleeping, these actions are going on. And you are polluting as well because every step you take including eating food or throwing it away, drinking water from the sachet and throwing it away, you’re also polluting. So, it’s about taking action. Before you know it, the number will accumulate. Hundred million sounds like a big number, but if you take steps every day, it’s achievable. There are days when you do a lot, and there are days when you do less. The accumulated thing, you will get there. 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, that’s the party at the centre.
The presidency argued that the opposition members were defecting because President Bola Tinubu is providing good leadership. For you, is it about Tinubu’s good leadership style that is attracting people in the opposition or do you think there is more to it?
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 rearrangement 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. And 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 giving problems to Nigeria, are you willing to change? Are you repenting? 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 look at counting 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, so, whichever party you move to is really your personal choice.
There is this fear that Nigeria could be tilting towards a one-party state. Some observers are foreseeing a possible implosion within the APC due to this massive inflow of opposition parties. What are your reactions to these two questions?
Number one; 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.
So, that doesn’t make a one-party state; 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. In Nigeria, you can create as many parties as you want, but what is going to sustain the party is whether the members of the party believe in that party. And that’s what we’ve been trying to work on since we started leading the SDP, to make sure that only those who believe in the party join the party. And no matter the condition, after the last election, we were offered many positions in the government of President Tinubu. We only wish him well. I said, no, let us sustain our SDP. Let us provide the alternative. To say, they removed subsidies and made the people poor, yet they still can’t balance the budget. We told you not to remove the subsidy. We have a way to balance the budget by increasing the revenue being collected, using transparency, and by managing government spending to eliminate waste, and by redirecting government budgeting towards creating employment for the people. 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 herdsmen 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. We offer to clean the security apparatus, so that those who are collaborating with terrorists and bandits are not the ones in charge of spending government security votes. So, we put all of those plans in place, and we intend to expand agriculture, instead of using the money for fancy projects that you do not see. When we put all of this together, it’s an alternative that is still valid.
So, there cannot be a one-party state, when our politics is not based on one set of ideas. Everybody will form a party based on the ideas they are pursuing.
Do you think Nigerians 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 because it takes longer.
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 will not come out on Election Day.
You cannot say they are not interested in the democratic process. They are interested; otherwise they won’t go and pick the voter’s card. 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, one of the states in Nigeria.
It shows that the majority was left behind and that is what the SDP is working on. It’s just that the media are more focused on people they know; people who are newsmakers. That is the nature of the media because they need a name to draw attention. 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 government, 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 away from somebody who is going to come and save us. We are going to save ourselves and we are going to follow this process. So, any country you go to, and their politics is attractive to you, it is because the people of that country say, we are going to save ourselves. We are not going to leave politics to politicians who are not going to point fingers and say ‘those people.’ In a democratic system of government, the majority cannot suffer because the majority decides the votes. Majority decides the government. So, how can the majority suffer in a majority-based decision-making process? That is the reason we are paying keen attention to politics and ensuring that nobody can take advantage of the people anymore. So, that’s the whole idea.
Nigerians want to know how strong the SDP is from the local level to the state. How strong is this party 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 they banned the party from the military. 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, 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. So, 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 banks to find their own solution. So, that is what attracted me to the party, and that is why we’re making the effort, and that is why we are here. 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 wants you to forget that there was a time in this country when the richest black man known at that time decided to say, I’d rather die in prison than allow my people not to be free. So, the man who had all given to him by hard work, by personal effort, decided to say, I’d rather lose my life. 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. That is why we must remind our people, it’s not about Tinubu is too tall, Tinubu is too short, Tinubu is wicked, it’s not about that. Tinubu offended me, Tinubu is not like that. No, it’s about the government not working. And if you go to Tinubu’s hometown, you will see poor people there. If you go to his extended family, forget about his son jumping up and down, if you go to his extended family, you will see that they are struggling to pay their rent too. They are struggling to access energy. They are struggling with electricity. They are struggling with petrol. They are struggling with diesel. They are struggling with everything. They are struggling with education. So, the government is not working for anybody. Meet the senator representing Akure where you are coming from; is it that he’s a bad man? Is it that he’s a wicked man? Has he been able to solve any problem either in Akure North, Akure South, Ondo, or in Idanre? Where has he solved any problem? He can’t, because the tool he’s using is that somebody tried to use a broom to dig a well. Tinubu’s time will come and go and you would ask, ‘what has happened in the last four years’? Nothing, it was just music and dancing around chairs.
Are you saying that Tinubu hasn’t done anything? Are you saying none of his policies has impacted positively on the lives of the masses; none at all?
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. You’re an honest, hard-working, well-trained journalist and this is a high-level profession. Journalism, law, medicine, and some of these professions, are at the top of the elite profession. Yet, in all these professions, professionals who are working day and night cannot take care of their families. 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. You know that young people are applying to your station for employment, and you know that they have talent, but you don’t have the budget to employ them. You know that as you go around covering, that if you take your camera and you pan around with your camera, that you are going to capture poverty. That if somebody is doing a birthday party, and they stand anywhere in your area, in Akure, and they take a photo of their birthday party, in the background you will see poor people there.
If you are leading a road show or travelling along the street, you cannot travel 100 meters without encountering 100 cases of destitution. So, you know that water doesn’t run in the house where you live. No single supply of water from the water corporation to your house. So, what has changed? Where were you three years ago? Where are you now? What has changed? Not only that, forget about three years ago, go back to 10 years ago. 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. Don’t come to me that Tinubu is bad. I am not interested. I knew before. That is why I ran against them. I knew they would be bad. When a chef goes into the kitchen with 10 bags of rice, and says he is going to feed the whole of Ondo State, you know he is lying. He is not going to feed himself. He knows that it cannot be done. Tinubu knew when he was coming that all the things he was saying would not work. But he was addressing the poor in a tongue of deception because how can you go and tell the poor who rely on Okada, Danfo, Keke, who rely on these unorthodox methods of travel in modern times, that you are going to remove subsidies from petrol? What does that mean? They are going to increase the price. They are clapping. How does that make sense? You don’t have public transport. As you are sitting down there within the radius of Fresh FM, you have three or four governments over your heads there. You have the local governments, whether Akure North, Akure South, Idanre; any of the other ones where they may be hearing your voices up to our local government, or Ose, and all those places. You have the local governments. None of them has a transport system for you. None of them has school buses for the children going to school.
None of them has a water supply for you. None of them has security for you. None of them has a food bank, where if you are short of food, or short of money, you can go and get it. None of them has agri-plantation for you. Then, you are also headed by Ondo, that you are led by those three governments. They are three governments that have no transport system for you. It has no farm settlement for you. It has no security system for you. It has no welfare office for you. It has nothing for you. It has no job centre for you. It has no skill acquisition centre for you. Then, you are also governed by the Federal Government of Nigeria led by Bola Tinubu. It has nothing for you. It has no welfare system for you. No job offer for you. How is your life going to get better? The only time the Nigerian people know that government people are around is when the ablutions are passing by. So with that obnoxious noise, where is it coming from? Oh, maybe that’s the speaker. Maybe, that’s the governor. Maybe, that’s one commissioner. Maybe, that’s the minister; the louder the noise, the higher the office. If this noise is this obnoxious and blind and about to block our ears, that must be somebody from the federal government. If the noise is less, maybe, it is one chairman trying to prove to be somebody. So that’s all the Nigerians have. And you are saying that there should be no alternative? Even for Tinubu, there must be an alternative.
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 because the music is only sweet when you are inside the studio. Once you come out, they shut the door, you don’t hear it again. So 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.
Once you are outside, you are outside. So, they live in these bubbles and we need to change the system. It is not that I personally don’t have access to these things. That’s not my problem. I have access to anybody and any benefit. But I’m just one out of over 200 million people. And how do I explain it? That in a country flowing with milk and honey, gold and diamond, oil and solids, gas and agriculture, that that country is now the number one capital of poverty. It is a shame. It is a terrible shame.
Are the new entrants willing to be debriefed on the ideologies of the SDP 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. And we’re having more intense engagements. It’s happening at every level of the party. 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. Here, we don’t rob the bank. So, account for your past behaviour and stop mentioning people’s names here. Here, we talk about the people only. We’re not part of any conspiracy to cheat the poor. So, if you have problems with those who were in conspiracy before, wait outside, sort it out with them.
When you come here, use us only to preach farewell to poverty, insecurity, accountability to corruption. If your language is that, then you start to examine your own contribution so that people will know that our party is not a place where just by merely joining us, all your sins are forgiven.
So sins are not forgiven in SDP? Is that what you’re saying?
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. So, it will be a small thing, a bigger thing. What is the use? They must not see us coming and start laughing and say, look at these people who say they’re SDP. Are they not the same APC? No. Or look at these people who say they’re SDP. Are they not the same PDP? Look at this man who robbed us to the last kobo when he was in power. He’s now joining these people singing a new song. So, we keep telling them that you can join the Catholic Church today. You can join and be a member of the Catholic Church. Right now, no matter what your religion is, you can walk up to the nearest Catholic Church or Catholic priest and say, I want to be a Catholic. But you cannot on that same day say, I also want to be the Pope.
Look at the thief on the right and the thief on the left. It didn’t take the thief on the right and the thief on the left more than a few moments to show their character. One was mocking the Messiah and saying, look at you, you cannot save yourself. The other one immediately confesses his sins and says, look, the Messiah has not committed any sin. I am here. I’ve committed a sin. I’ve killed people. I deserve to be hanged, but this man here doesn’t deserve to be hanged. I’m right there to say, today I say unto you, you’ll meet me in paradise. Is that not so? So, it’s not about how long it takes. 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. And then something we haven’t done before. You will never hear from SDP. We don’t attack people’s families. We don’t attack them personally. We speak on issues.
Nasir El-Rufai who recently joined the SDP is said to be in talks with Atiku Abubakar for coalition to champion a coalition. Would this not become problem for the SDP?
It’s not a problem to the SDP because if you go and ask a former vice president, 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. He’s a charming fellow who likes to take photographs and we can’t stop him from enjoying his life. But the SDP has ways by which we do things. And we do that methodically. 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. So, that is not the policies we understand in SDP. It’s not the policies of personality. It’s the policies of principles. And as time goes on, you will find out that the best choice for the Nigerian people is where the SDP will stay. 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.
