A critical stakeholder and former State Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Adamawa State, Mr Theman Wafarinya, has announced his defection to the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
Wafarinya, who was also a member of the Adamawa State House of Assembly as well as a governorship aspirant of the SDP, explained that his aim is to reposition the party for the 2027 general election in the State.
He maintained that the Social Democratic Party will be a household name and a party to beat across the State comes 2027, despite the presence of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Congress (APC).
“I present myself for the governorship position to reposition the party as well as correcting the wrongs from the previous administrations, especially in the areas of youths, women empowerment and transforming our rural areas of the State “.
Wafarinya, who was a critical stakeholder of APC, said, “I resigned from the party on June 12, 2023, Nigerian Democracy Day, after a very deep reflection on some of the national and state issues, including the party slogan ‘Change’, which failed Nigerians as it couldn’t replicate the ideology of the party”.
I believe that day is historic because I wanted to be reminded of how to run a true democracy in the country, which the date symbolises in all ramifications, he stated.
Sad to note that the party slogan “change” has never been manifested as the trend should not be on names, there was something behind the change, and we were thinking that we were going to adopt the type of leadership that Nigerians want, he stressed.
From the slogan, I was expecting that we would make a real change from the PDP we took power from, “but as APC grew, it was taking the path of the PDP, which I reflected deeply about certain things, and the result was my defection to SDP”.
He promised to give priority to youths and women empowerment, which he said constitute the majority of voters, yet their impacts are not considered.
Theman Wafarinya added that the Social Democratic Party is critical of this aspect, and we believe in building the yearnings and aspirations of Nigerians and not the few, promising that rural development will be given serious attention.
Commenting on appointing women as running mates on sympathy, the governorship hopeful maintained that “if constitutional provision is applied, it is acceptable, but if for the sake of sympathy, we must think twice”.
