By Sunday Ani
Contrary to the news circulating that the Social Democratic Party (SDP), like other opposition political parties, is currently enmeshed in crisis, the party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 elections, Prince Adewole Adebayo, has debunked the rumour, stressing that the party is running normally and peacefully.
A few days ago, the national publicity secretary of the party, Araba Rufus Aiyenigba, had announced in a statement that three vacant positions of the Deputy National Chairman (South), Deputy National Chairman (North) and National Financial Secretary had been filled.
The trio of Ugochukwu Ubah, Alhaji Shehu Musa and Bello Ado Hussain were appointed to fill the three vacant positions.
However, two days after the appointment, the national chairman, Alhaji Shehu Musa Gabam, who presided over the meeting where the appointments were made, issued a statement denying that such a thing ever happened.
Following the conflicting statements from both the Aiyenigba and Gabam, there were strong insinuations that the party may have taken the path of other opposition parties like the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP) that have been battling one conflict or the other since the 2023 presidential elections.
But Adebayo, in a television interview, attributed what is happening in the party to a minor disagreement which is being handled internally among the members of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party.
He stressed that what ordinarily should not be an issue is gaining unnecessary attention because politicians have started politicking two years before the next general elections.
He said, “I don’t see any crisis in particular. The party is running normally. Now that many people are starting early to talk about 2027, there’s a kind of unusual attention paid to something that’s a simple matter. We have not started using the word crisis.
“I think there was a meeting at the end of NWC. There were 12 of them. They are supposed to be 15. From what we gathered from both sides of the discussion, 11 people attended, including the chairman, secretary and all the rest of them.
“Now, the majority of them said they took a decision to fill three positions in the NWC, and I think there is a minority that said they were not happy with that decision.
“But I am not getting involved in that because I’m not a member of the NWC, and no member of the NWC has come out to speak. So, I think they’re trying to work it out among themselves,” he said.
He urged Nigerians to be cautious of the source of information they believe, stressing that most of the information about the raging crisis in the party emanated from the wrong sources.
“Most of the comments you get are coming from people who are not in leadership. Some who have just joined the party like to hug the media, but I can tell you, even in this latest discussion, the national chairman has been quite mature.
“He’s not issued any statement. The national secretary has also been quite mature. He’s not issued any statement, and I think from what I gathered at their meeting, they are working things out.
“The National Working Committee is the most active organ of the party, and at our convention, they were given powers to make decisions on behalf of the convention, pending convention, and on behalf of the NEC, pending NEC.
“So, I think they will work it out. It’s an intra-NWC discussion, and they’re not telling outsiders what they disagree about. But, I think they made a decision and they’re working on it.”