The Social Democratic Party (SDP) presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections, Prince Adewole Adebayo, has dismissed speculations of cracks within the party, maintaining that the SDP stands firmly on law, order, and ideological consistency. In this interview with TITILOPE JOSEPH, he warns that Nigeria’s political crisis cannot be resolved by politicians merely hopping from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to African Democratic Congress (ADC) or SDP. According to him, the country needs a radical shift in political philosophy anchored on accountability and ethics; not just cosmetic changes in party names, among others. Excerpts:
There have been reports of factions within the SDP. Can you clarify the current state of your party?
Well, there are no factions in the SDP, but there are tendencies. And for a political party like us, we had one common tendency. Ideological convergence was already set up for us. We’re a different party. We’re lucky, because when originally the party came into existence in 1989, before even members came to the party, we already had a path to go. Remember the NRC-SDP? Little to the left, little to the right. And the politicians who wanted to go to the left side of the ideological divide decided to go to the SDP. And that’s how we came up with the senior Yar’Adua, and so many other people like that. Eventually, we ended up with MKO Abiola and the Farewell to Poverty and Insecurity. So then when the party came back after the military interregnum, we followed that ideology. But as you look for electoral success, new people join. And some of these people who join are joined as human beings. So they’re coming with their own tendencies. So you expect to see some negotiation going on, some conflict going on. And secondly, you’ll see that the party is a party of law and order. The party is a very carefully crafted party for law and order. Every organ of the party works. In many political parties, these organs are decorative. So, if you say there’s a National Working Committee (NWC), it could be three governors sitting down on top of ‘Ghana-must-go” bags telling you what to do. In the SDP, no matter who you are, if the NWC is calling you, you better go there quickly and listen to them. If the State Working Committee is calling you, you better be careful. If the ward is calling you, you better be careful. You could see that the National Chairman of the SDP, duly elected and substantive chairman, is Shehu Musa Gabam. Nobody’s questioning that. The National Secretary is Olu Agunloye. Shehu Musa Gabam, due to the activity of the NWC, over which he presides, suspended him. And he has comported himself, even though he argues vehemently that there’s no basis to suspend him, he’s not guilty of anything, and he’s been following the party constitution. But he has kept to that. So, for the past two months, he hasn’t come to the office, he’s obeying the order of the NWC. Occasionally when the party needs him to do anything, ask him some questions, or perform any activity, he still obeys. So, it’s a party of law and order. But there are people, whom I have some sympathy for, who are new to the party. Who assume that, okay, if this is the National Woman Leader of the party, National Youth Leader of the party, or any official of the party, if they don’t look like they’re billionaires, you think that, maybe if I promise to buy them a car, or give them some money, they’re going to overlook the authority. They won’t. And so that cultural shock is what you see. Many people, when they face discipline in the party, or they have a request and it’s not met, they’ll resort to what they’ve been used to in their previous places. But a political party that wants to grow, has to have a room to know that people are learning. Let them do all the drama they need to do. But the SDP is not about drama at all. There’s no faction. The organs are there, and everything is intact, and if anybody is in doubt, you can go to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), who nominated the candidates, who is going to conduct them tomorrow, and so on and so forth.
Regarding El-Rufai’s recent call for voters in Kaduna to support SDP candidates, despite claims of his expulsion from the SDP, how do you address the question of expelling someone who is reportedly not a member?
That question is what the NWC of the party left to me. I don’t want to ban anyone. Left to me, anyone who is banned, if they’re repentant, they behave well, should be accommodated. But the organs of the party have the right to make a decision regarding membership. The Supreme Court of Nigeria has decided that. What I can say, generally speaking, is that as a member of the political party that obeys its own rules, if the party says this is how we go about it, I’ll follow the party. However, the party has sufficient organs within the party for anybody, including someone who was banned or suspended, to approach that organ of the party to make your case. So for me, who is a member of the party, who wants the party to grow, anyone who says vote for SDP is my friend, whether he was in my party or not in my party, whether I was suspended or not suspended. I go around telling people to vote for SDP not because of me, but because the country needs alternative politics.
Is El-Rufai currently a member of the SDP, or is he affiliated with the ADC or another group, particularly in light of his involvement with a coalition?
Well, what I can say, and this is second-hand information, is that from party records, from what party officials are saying, that he’s not a member of the party. But if he wants to be a member of the party, I’m not against him being a member of the party. I just have to follow what the party says clearly. But the party officials will explain how the processes work. But what I can say is that this is how you know a member of a party. You will see their name in the ward register, where they come from. And at the national level, the national secretary will have overall numbers of members and their particulars. But one way or the other, it’s a voluntary organisation. It’s left for the member and the party to try to work it out. And we who are inside the party have been advising one way or the other.
El-Rufai has described the APC as a failed, clannish, and visionless administration that has worsened Nigeria’s socioeconomic issues. As a leader of an opposition party, do you agree with his assessment of the APC?
He’s not saying anything new. He’s saying this in 2025, after many waters have crossed his own bridge, what I was saying in 2022, 2023. So it’s echoing me now. So I can’t charge him for copyright, but I can say welcome to the club. But we’ve been saying this for some time. And we’re saying this not out of animosity or anything. The result that we are getting from the performance of the APC for the last 10 years resembles the result we got and we’re not satisfied with under the PDP for 16 years. And if this result must change, we must change the political tendencies that are in authority. Changing your political party without changing your tendency is just a mere nomenclature.
Can you explain what you mean by changing political tendencies, and how this impacts Nigeria’s political landscape?
There is a governing principle, which is feudalistic, that is responsible for why our democracy is not in congruence with the result. Now, that mentality where first you don’t respect the fact that power comes from the people, you don’t respect the rule of law, you don’t want to show accountability, and you don’t want to separate money from politics. That tendency where the bigger your money, the bigger the result you get in politics. And then when you go to politics, the bigger money you need to roll over your political investment. That kind of mentality, if you have it, you can jump from APC to SDP, to ADC, to Young Progressives Party (YPP). If you carry that mentality, wherever you go, it’ll pollute that place. So if you are in APC, you don’t even leave APC, and you decide to change your mind. For example, President Tinubu doesn’t have to leave APC, he’s in government. If he decides to take a playbook, something out of the playbook of SDP, and governs properly for the Nigerian people, follows Chapter 4 of the Constitution and Chapter 2 of the Constitution combined, and decides to be accountable and to be a constitutional democrat, he doesn’t have to leave his party. Results will change. But because you have squabbles in your party, you now leave and join another party. But you don’t want to drop the tendency that caused the tension where you’re coming from. You want to now pollute the new place with that same tendency.
INEC has instructed political parties to refrain from campaigning until 150 days before elections, as per the law. An APC member, Farouk Aliyu, has criticised INEC for electoral issues. What is your view on the actions of political parties and INEC’s role in this?
Two things. One, the guilty party is President Tinubu and the APC. There’s nowhere you go. It’s only APC and Tinubu. INEC says most of the parties. When you’re the leader, when you’re the party in government, you set the tone. When you’re the leader of the country, when it comes to obeying the law, you set the tone. There’s nowhere you go you don’t see the picture of President Tinubu, some members of his family already dancing and waltzing ahead of 2027. So if you’re not to be caught panting as an opposition, you would give an answer. If the government was governing, our policies would be in opposition against their governing methods. But since they’re campaigning, the opposition has to be in a campaign format.
Then there are so many displaced politicians who were left, who were used by President Tinubu and dumped by the highway, who are now walking all over the place, looking for political accommodation. So in the process of changing parties, looking for a party to join, dissolving NWC or some party, joining their crisis, politics becomes something that is now current.
What are your thoughts on the internal conflicts within opposition parties and the implications for Nigeria’s democracy? Additionally, what do you make of the opposition coalition involving the ADC and the caliber of its politicians?
Let me start with ADC. I have stopped thinking about them. Because we have had an engagement with them. They came, before they went to ADC. We had a robust conversation with them. They had no answers to 99 per cent of our questions. And we said, thank you very much. Carry whatever you’re carrying to the next bus stop. Here, you have not answered our questions correctly. We’re not dealing with you. Doesn’t mean that we don’t share the same objective with you, that President Tinubu is not supposed to be there. And it would be a mistake for the country, even for him personally, and for any other person, to keep him beyond 2027.