Presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 2023 general election, Adewole Adebayo, in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Friday, said that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will be removed from power in 2027 and replaced by an SDP president.
Adebayo said this in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Friday while discussing the entry of new members into the SDP, with the latest being former Kaduna Governor Nasir El-Rufai who defected from the All Progressives Congress (APC), and former Presidential Aspirant, Dr Hamza Al-Mustapha.
He said, “Tinubu is going to be removed from power, that one is sure, and there will be an SDP president.”
Adebayo also dismissed any internal coalition talks within the party, stating that while external discussions may be ongoing, SDP remains committed to its own agenda as he said, “As for coalition and all of that, it’s not inside our party. Maybe people are having discussions outside, and after having that discussion, they feel that they can come to the SDP and try to work within the SDP. But in the SDP, we are following our program as before.
“We knew when all of them were ganging up and going up and down to Chatham House that they would not last. We knew that when they started sharing the spoils of office, they would all scatter. We knew that the programs that all of them had would not work for the people and they would lose popularity. So we started preparing our party. We have no crisis. We started managing our party. When they were offering positions, we didn’t go and join them. We remained where we are, we keep talking to the people. Many more will join us as the year goes by.
“It is like that. If you are consistent and you build your house and you are not diverted, distracted, and you focus on what you are doing, those who say they are experts will come back to you when their own has failed to now come to work with you. And what we are trying to do here is to make sure that whatever is chasing people from wherever they are coming from does not come into our party. Your grievance, your problem, your historical calamitatus that brought you to the party ends at the door when you join SDP. You now follow SDP as an ordinary member. Go from your ward. If you have other ambitions, other plans, they are welcome. We are free.
“We are a very, very organised party. We have institutions that work. We have learned from the lesson of APC and PDP that if institutions don’t work, if you follow personality up and down, you will fail.”
Addressing his stance on former Kaduna State governor Nasir El-Rufai, Adebayo acknowledged his capabilities, saying, “I recognise El-Rufai as someone who is a technocrat and an achiever when you give him an executive job to do. He has his own weaknesses. He was mentioning to me some problems, people don’t like him in some places. I said, everybody has their own weaknesses. He has his own weaknesses, And it’s his job to deal with that. It’s not my job. I’m not his therapist, I’m not his mentor. But you cannot deny the fact that he was a very effective FCT minister. He developed Kaduna with infrastructure, and he was very good and transparent when he was at the BPU.”
“The reason why I welcome him to my party is that I see him as a patriotic Nigerian, hardworking, very effective in an era where we don’t have effective people in government,” he added.
On whether he fears being sidelined by new entrants into the party, Adebayo dismissed any such concerns, affirming, “Everybody who is coming in knows that I’m going to run in 2027.”
He went on to say, “Any coward who feels threatened by someone coming to his party cannot be president. If they didn’t come to my party and I become the candidate of my party, I would still have to beat them in their own party to be president.”
