The 2023 presidential candidate of Social Democratic Party (SDP), Prince Adewole Adebayo, has declared that he would contest the 2027 presidential election on the platform of the party, adding that both the party and the Nigerian people were already aware of his plans.
Adebayo who stated this in Abuja at the 50th birthday celebration of his wife, Queen Lilian Adebayo, however, said SDP would not be anybody or group’s instrument of retaliation against the Tinubu’s administration.
He was referring to the ongoing negotiations for coalition by the opposition parties in readiness for the 2027 election.
He said, “I will run for 2027; my party knows that I’m running the election, the Nigerian people know and we will let them know.
“But as for the coalition, we are listening to them. We don’t want to be a getaway car for a conspiracy and robbery we did not plan. So if you plan something somewhere and you want to use SDP as a getaway car, the car is not available.
“We are talking, we are listening. If the coalition is for the good of the Nigerian people, SDP is available. But if it’s just a crying centre for disappointed Tinubu followers, they should go back to Tinubu who made the promise to them and resolve their differences there.
“But if the reason is that you are in politics to see that Nigerian people are not shortchanged again, you can come to SDP. But if you are just coming to retaliate for the insult they insulted you or the promise they made you that they didn’t keep, you are not part of it. It is the stand of the party. The party said all Nigerians are welcome, but come to SDP and implement our manifesto.”
Speaking on the killings in the country, the former presidential candidate lamented that President Tinubu’s security chiefs were incompetent.
He stressed that Nigerians were not supposed to be surprised with the present economic situation because they knew that these present administrators did not take governance seriously.
“We knew this was how they would behave. What shocks me about Nigerians is that they are shocked about Tinubu because we knew that these people don’t take governance seriously.
“They take elections seriously, but not governance. The first duty of a president is to be commander-in-chief. The first order of business of government is national security, then the welfare of the people, justice, development and infrastructure. So it’s a disappointment.
“I personally do not like to politicize insecurity because when there is an act of insecurity, and you criticize the government, in a way that can encourage terrorists and other criminals to think that they can influence our politics by committing more atrocities.
“The president should look at the security architecture of the country and look at governance with more seriousness,” he said.
Prince Adebayo described his wife as a blessing, and his greatest achievement in life, adding that she taught him from being a boy to a man.
On his part, the Chairman Forum of State Chairmen of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, Hon. Femi Olaniyi Ferrari, pleaded with Nigerians to join SDP to rewrite the story of Nigeria.
“We can all understand what everyone is passing through in Nigeria now. We asked for a change but the change has short-changed us and the economy is nothing to write home about.
“The only thing we can do now is to plead with everybody including youths and market women to join the SDP. We are trying to change the polity” Ferrari stressed.
Earlier, the National Secretary of the Coalition of United Political Parties, (CUPP) High Chief Peter Ameh said coalition was crucial in addressing Nigeria’s present situation.
“As the people come to dialogue, whether we find ourselves in a place of celebration or worship, it’s very important that we look at Nigeria and discuss it,” Aneh added.
“There is hunger on the streets; Nigerians are facing depression, high tariffs in electricity and data and increase in everything since President Tinubu came into office. The cost of living has gone so high,” Chief Ameh added.