Prince Adewole Adebayo is the national leader of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, as well as its presidential candidate in the 2023 general election. In this interview, Adebayo, a lawyer and business mogul, speaks on a wide range of national issues. He explains why some political chieftains like former Vice President Atiku Abubakar could not fit into the SDP. He also spoke on the recent assessment of the performance of the Nigeria’s economy by the Director-General of the World Trade Organization, WTO, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. 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, even before 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 Yar’Adua, the senior Yar’Adua, and so many other people like that. Eventually, we ended up with Abiola and the Farewell to Poverty and Insecurity.
So then, when the party came back after the military interregnum, and we came back, we followed that ideology. But, you know, as you look for electoral success, new people join. And some of these people who joined are human beings. So they are coming with their own tendencies. The politics, the way they know it. So you expect to see some negotiation going on, some conflicts going on. And secondly, you will 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 they say there’s a National Working Committee, 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, Olu Agunloye. Shehu Musa Gabam, due to the activity of the National Working Committee, 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 doesn’t come to the office, he’s obeying the order of the NWC.