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By Chukwudi Nweje
Prince Adewole Adebayo, the 2023 Presidential Candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), has decried the violence in the country ahead of the elections, despite the Peace Accord signed by the 18 political parties in September. He blamed the ‘establishment’ parties that he said showed signs that they would not honour the accord from the venue of the pact. According to him, the so-called ‘Big 4’ forcibly took over chairs assigned to other parties. He also discussed other national issues and what he would do as president.
What are your experiences with the 2023 electioneering campaigns so far?
It has not been much of a surprise for me, though I have seen encouragement. The initial perception of some people were that the race has been determined but I knew that the race would not be decided until election day.
The media has been busy discussing personalities, rifts in the political parties, and waking up old scandals. But, given the nature and enormity of the problems facing the country, I am convinced beyond doubt that those existential issues will impact the minds of the people and that a political party like the SDP that has been able to articulate solutions to problems and has done it consistently, could become believable and that people would consider voting for us.
The way I understand it, there is no homogeneity to the Nigerian electorate, the easiest demographic to sway is those that are online savvy because once you tweet something online, it is retweeted and could gain up to one million followers but in reality, it won’t touch one per cent of the electorate; I have seen that Nigerians want a change.
Still, on the issue of campaig, there are allegations of state governments that do not allow opposition parties access to campaign facilities, have you witnessed such?
They are not mere allegations, they are true. Many state governors are worse than what we had during the military and colonial era; they are on their way to becoming equals with the defunct apartheid regime in South Africa. They are denying the opposition access for many reasons, to help their own political party, to hurt the opposition, and not to be seen or perceived as helping the opposition.
When you put all of these together, it becomes clear that the governors don’t understand the essence of the free flow of information in a democracy. But for the SDP that has asymmetric campaigns, who have grassroots campaign methodologies, we are surviving it, but it still doesn’t make it right.
I am going to speak to Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar and Bishop Matthew Kukah again to brief them on what is happening. The excesses of these governors need to be curbed because all of us are partakers in this democracy. Denying the opposition opportunity to campaign freely is not good because the ruling party today may be in opposition tomorrow.
Back in September, the 18 political parties signed a Peace Accord to eschew all acts of violence and hate speeches. But violence and hate speech are still going on, how concerned are you?
Right from the venue of the Peace Accord, I saw that some of the political parties were going to breach the accord. The PDP, Labour Party, and the NNPP refused to sit on the seats, where alphabetically they were supposed to sit; they forcibly sat in the front row. Alphabetically, it was supposed to be AAC, ADC, ADP, then APC. As SDP, I was supposed to sit next to the PDP, the same way we appear on the ballot paper. But these parties forced themselves to other parties’ seats in the front row. It took maturity and sacrifice to get the parties whose seats were taken from walking out of the Peace Accord.
You could imagine what would have happened if, Omoyele Sowore had gone to pull Atiku Abubakar out of his seat, or Dumebi Kachikwu had pulled Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso out of his seat? It would have been a scandal for Nigeria. So, the whole thing was just a mess. This is not the attitude of people who have in mind to keep a peace accord, because peace does not come just like that, peace is a byproduct of truth and justice. I’m not surprised that they are not keeping to the Peace Accord but the SDP and some other parties keep to it.
The candidates and party chairmen were the ones that put their signatures on the Peace Accord, how does one blame them for acts of violence perpetrated by party supporters?
The supporters do not act on their own. If the leader is not interested in violence, the follower will not be. We were given an injunction by the Peace Accord Committee to communicate the peace deal to our followers but many of the candidates go around with enforcers, which is the problem.
You can see what happened during the 1st Arise Television Townhall Meeting that had APC, PDP, Labour Party and NNPP that degenerated into a shouting match. Compare it to the second one that had SDP, AAC, ADP, and APGA, you can see the class, composure, candor, and respectability, as opposed to the shouting match and insult hauling in the first session. It seemed like two different countries.
There are concerns over the credibility of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct free and fair elections, especially with the discovery of fictitious names and names of people believed to be dead in the voters’ register even though INEC said it is cleaning up the register, what are your concerns?
I don’t see any reason INEC cannot conduct free and fair elections. Our worry should be whether the security services would be free and fair; the electoral commission has areas of discretion it could use. I think that for now the commission wants to conduct a free and fair election and I think we should all cooperate with the electoral commission and give it the benefit of doubt.
What was your first thought when you heard of the arson at the Ogun and Osun States offices of INEC?
My first reaction was that it was just basically a case of poor law enforcement for public safety. In every society, you have mischief makers and people who want to cause trouble during every transition period in this country. In 2007, close to the election, a fully loaded trailer ran into the INEC headquarters at Abuja. It is not something to scare the country. It just shows that law enforcement agencies should be alive to their duties and do what is right. If INEC had learned from experience at all, it should have thought of that.
About 65,000 permanent voters’ cards (PVCs) were burnt …
(Cuts in) INEC can reprint the PVCs in one week.
The worry is that INEC’s Commissioner in charge of voter education, Mr. Festus Okoye said the PVCs are pre-2019 cards. How come INEC just locked them in their cabinet eight years after printing the cards without communicating with the owners to come to pick the cards?
I believe INEC had been announcing that there are uncollected PVCs in their offices. For every eligible voter that has registered, I think the right thing for such a person to do is to go and collect his or her PVC.
Perhaps, the owners of these PVCs have gone to the INEC office several times and could not for one reason or the other collect them. It is part of the inefficiency in our system. So, INEC should have a more transparent process for registered voters to collect their PVCs. It is unfortunate that this is a country where Post Offices do not work. Ideally in other civilized countries of the world, you register and when the card is ready, they will send it to you by post. INEC must seize the opportunity during the collection of the freshly issued PVCs to remind those who registered earlier and have not collected the PVCs to come and pick them up. This is part of the reason some people are registering twice because they did not get the PVCs after registering and assumed they can register again.
You have been campaigning around the country, but polls conducted by Anap Foundation and NOI Polls do not see you as a contender as far as the 2023 presidential election is concerned, what do you say to that?
They should review their methodologies, I sympathise with them, but I don’t think they are doing it deliberately. Maybe they have a faulty system or their algorithm is faulty or they don’t have enough manpower to conduct a thorough survey. Did they go around the 774 local government areas to do the poll? Did they cover the 8,809 wards?
When they say the SDP has no supporters, it is like saying you conducted a nationwide poll and did not see anybody selling akara on the street; it is impossible. However, there is no need in arguing with polls because it does not help you. We have no problem with the Anap Foundation polls; after the election, they will see that they predicted wrongly.
You are quoted to say that when you become president that you will recover payment for all crude oil stolen from the Niger Delta and Nigeria, how would you go about that?
Very simple. You start internally because people know that the system here does not work. This stolen oil is taken to several countries and traded in Switzerland. The ships that took the oil and where the oil was offloaded are all documented. Stealing crude oil is like stealing money and we can recover the oil the same way we are recovering the money stolen by Gen Sani Abacha. Moreover, our crude oil does not have the same molecular signature as crude oil from other places. Even within Nigeria, the Sulphur content of our crude differs from terminal to terminal. For instance, what you get at the Qua Ibo terminal is not the same as what you will get at Escavos, Forcados, or Bonny. You cannot go to any refinery in the world without the catalyst converter telling where the crude oil is from.
You are talking about something that would involve the international community, how would you get them to cooperate?
They will cooperate the same way they have been returning the Abacha loot. If they know that you are after the repatriation of stolen wealth and not more opportunity to steal, they will cooperate; the basic thing is to establish that laws were broken in Nigeria and also in the countries where the crude oil was taken. Nigeria’s crude oil was stolen and taken to China during the President Goodluck Jonathan administration and the Chinese government seized them. The President Muhammadu Buhari administration later recovered, quietly sold the crude oil, and spent the money.
What is your take on restructuring Nigeria?
I believe that the constitution even as it is now if properly implemented would solve most of the problems we have. Under the current constitution, Nigeria can conveniently deal with most of the challenges it is facing but it does not mean there are no rooms for change. Nigerians are good at fashioning out systems, and this is not the best we could have done.
The fact that someone is on his farm and some marauders invade and murder him does not mean it is because of restructuring, or a state governor steals public funds and we shout restructuring. We need to send creative people to the National Assembly who would amend the constitution and give us a workable document. I would suggest that we move so many items from the exclusive list to the concurrent and residual list.
How would you approach the problem of insecurity if you were the president?
Basically, you must have general intelligence and situational awareness and the ability to deduce from facts what is likely to happen. When you notice a large convoy of vehicles passing through an otherwise lonely road, you should know that something is amiss and investigate it. So, you need constant intelligence and information gathering. There is also the need to improve professionalism in security services and ensure that people are devoted. Many people holding sensitive positions have zero loyalty to the country. We also need to look at the kinetic capability of the armed forces and security agencies; we need to show more love and understanding to one another as Nigerians.
What is your take on the privatisation of public assets?
I believe in the liberalisation of the economy. We should not be sponsoring politicians to come and steal public assets. Privatisation of public assets is a crime Olusegun Obasanjo and Atiku Abubakar committed against Nigeria. Liberalisation is okay, you can ask yourself why Gen, Ibrahim Babangida did not sell the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) to John Momoh or Chief Raymond Dokpesi? Babangida opened up the sector and allowed competition. NTA is still there, and Channels television and RayPower are also there. What they are doing in the name of privatization is stealing public assets.
If elected president in 2023, how would you deal with stealing public funds?
We often look at politicians for this stealing but in the ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) of government, we have nonpoliticians that are equally guilty.
Nobody can steal public money without the approval or delegated authority of an elected politician. The chief thief is always the president. No matter what people say about President Muhammadu Buhari, we know he is not a clean man. How do you explain the fact that some of the people working with him live above their means and he has never done anything about it? Civil servants stealing money are always arm-directed and that is why when they are caught, the case is rarely prosecuted in court. The civil servant can deceive or collude with the politician but can never act alone. I have to provide the leadership and ensure that nobody steals. It is not difficult to fight corruption, they have been massaging it.
