Former presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Adewole Adebayo, has declared that his mission in the 2027 election is to ensure that the current crop of leaders will be the last group of bad leaders Nigeria will ever have.
Adebayo condemned the attitude of resigning to fate, complaining, and hoping that God would send a good leader from heaven without actively working to bring such expectations to reality.
He noted that from former President Goodluck Jonathan to Muhammadu Buhari and now Bola Tinubu, Nigerians have always murmured and complained about their cluelessness and directionlessness without taking proportionate action to install a good leader.
On how he plans to achieve this, he said the key is to change the way politics has been played over the years, even as most parties continue with the same approach.
“If you listen to politicians, they will tell you, ‘Oh, the president who is there now is the problem.’ Then, it was anybody but Jonathan. Then, it was ‘Buhari is the problem, he’s clueless,’ and now, ‘Tinubu is the problem.’ But I can tell you, my mission is to make sure that Tinubu is the last of the bad presidents.
“How do you ensure that? You change the politics. You make Nigerians believe in the politics of their country—reasonable people who wouldn’t touch politics with a long pole. When politics is done properly, ethically, and legitimately, they will come into it.
“More talent will come into it, and people will not emphasise the politics of money. So, once we change that system, it doesn’t matter if Tinubu resigns tomorrow, or if you conspire and remove him; you don’t need that.
“What we need is to change the politics. And to do that, we must first change our political party. Anyone who looks at the SDP knows that we have changed the party for the better.
“The message is going to the people. While we are doing awareness and talking, I don’t want Nigerians to sit at home and point fingers at bad governors and say it’s caused by politicians. The mandate comes from the people, and once the people raise their bar, some politicians will respond, and some will fall by the wayside.
“But if you say, under this current system, that you want to bring money, push money on me, and put me there; I’m not going to accept that. We must change the politics, and that’s what we are trying to do.
“By God’s grace, we will not let the Nigerian people down, and we are not going to follow those who have ruined the system before. Anyone is free to join the party, but we are here for the people of Nigeria. We have no other objective, no other mission.”
He, therefore, urged Nigerians to adopt the SDP to correct the political ills in Nigeria.
“That is what the leadership of the SDP is working to achieve. If you speak to our national chairman, Shehu Gabam, our national secretary, Olu Ogunloye, and other leaders of the party, you’ll see that down our ladder and our organogram, we are reminding everyone who joins the party that they are welcome.
“However, look at our manifesto, Chapter Two of the Constitution, and the plight of the masses. Our politics is geared towards addressing that. What we want is for the party to be adopted by the Nigerian people as a platform to correct what is wrong in our politics,” he said.
