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By Sunday Ani
The presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 2027 general elections, Prince Adewole Adebayo, has said that the real terrorists in Nigeria are in the government and not the rag-tag hoodlums running roughshod on Nigerians all over the country.
He stated this while speaking at the ongoing annual conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
He stressed that Nigeria’s crisis is rooted largely in bad governance, weak institutions and a political class that is more interested in winning elections than solving the country’s problems.
Adebayo, who was among the presidential candidates invited to the NBA conference to present their visions for governing Nigeria, said Nigerians are less concerned about the political fortunes of individual politicians than about having a government that would improve their lives.
He said the repeated elections since 1999 had failed to produce the fundamental changes Nigerians expected, arguing that the country needed a new political direction anchored on the Constitution and its fundamental objectives.
According to him, the SDP had rejected the traditional politics of ethnic and religious rotation, money and political calculations, insisting that competence and commitment to the Nigerian people should determine who governs the country.
He said his party had previously engaged some “professional politicians” who sought to form a coalition with the SDP, but lamented that the discussions exposed fundamental differences in their political philosophy.
“We discovered three things. One, that they don’t care about ideology; they just want to win and figure it out later,” he said.
He explained that the SDP’s commitment was fundamentally tied to Chapter Two of the Nigerian Constitution, particularly its Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy.
He noted that anyone seeking political office under the SDP must subscribe to those principles, adding that the party would not rotate political power on the basis of ethnicity or religion.
“We do not rotate power based on ethnicity and religion. We do it based on your understanding of the needs of the country,” he said.
He also rejected the influence of money in determining political leadership, saying the SDP would rather build a coalition with ordinary Nigerians.
He said politicians would only be welcomed into such a coalition if they were prepared to subscribe to the Constitution and the ethical principles of the party.
On the contentious issue of fuel subsidy, Adebayo said the country should stop dwelling on whether subsidy should be removed or not, arguing that what Nigerians needed was a sustainable supply of petroleum products at affordable prices and a stable exchange rate.
He recalled that the SDP had warned against the removal of subsidy and predicted the hardship that would follow.
He said the current situation had validated the party’s position, arguing that the subsidy debate had become largely academic because the policy had already been dismantled.
He likened the situation to a medical patient whose appendix had already been removed, saying it would be impossible to simply reverse the procedure.
“Subsidy is like giving somebody a scholarship to a university that does not exist. The scholarship is useless,” he said.
He maintained that the real challenge was reducing energy costs through sustainable measures rather than returning to the old subsidy regime.
On insecurity, the SDP candidate condemned the political establishment, arguing that Nigeria’s security crisis could not be solved without confronting the political and economic interests allegedly sustaining it.
He said the country’s security expenditure had failed to translate into genuine security for citizens, insisting that security allocations should be examined alongside the broader structure of governance and accountability.
“The theme of our own campaign is ‘Farewell to Poverty and Insecurity’, and they are linked,” he said.
Adebayo alleged that elements within the political establishment and their collaborators benefit from insecurity, particularly kidnapping and illegal mining, and argued that Nigerians would continue to suffer if they repeatedly returned the same politicians to power.
He said the solution is to confront the networks that benefit from violence, illegal mining and insecurity rather than merely increasing security spending.
“If you remove these politicians, whom you keep re-electing, they will go away, and their terrorist partners will go away. If you keep re-electing them, the terrorists will continue because they are in partnership with the terrorists,” he alleged.
He also criticised what he described as the excessive use of security spending without adequate accountability, arguing that past administrations had left huge financial liabilities behind.
Addressing the persistent farmer-herder conflict, he rejected what he described as a simplistic portrayal of the crisis as a clash between farmers and herders.
“I am a herder myself. I have close to one million cattle but I’ve not killed anybody before,” he said.
He argued that the government should focus on identifying the real beneficiaries of violence and illegal exploitation of Nigeria’s natural resources.
He proposed stronger regulation of the mining sector, arguing that miners should be properly identified and held responsible for criminal activities that occur within the territories where they operate.
He also called for reforms to the Office of the National Security Adviser and a fundamental reorganisation of the armed forces.
According to him, Nigeria needs a “people’s army” that is structured to respond effectively to threats confronting communities across the country.
He criticised what he described as the creation of military divisions without sufficient manpower, arguing that the country needed properly equipped and adequately staffed formations rather than administrative changes that do not translate into operational strength.
On state police, he said the issue should be approached as a constitutional and governance matter rather than a political slogan.
He argued that since state governments possess legislative powers to make laws, they should also have the capacity to establish law-enforcement mechanisms capable of enforcing those laws.
“If you come to Rivers State and kill somebody, it’s against the law for Rivers State to kill somebody in Rivers State. Rivers State should not need Abuja to help them apprehend you,” he argued.
He maintained that every tier of government should have the capacity to enforce laws within its constitutional jurisdiction, saying state policing would strengthen local accountability and responsiveness.
Adebayo also presented his party’s “Farewell to Poverty and Insecurity” campaign theme as a broader promise to tackle Nigeria’s economic and security challenges simultaneously.
He said poverty and insecurity are interconnected and could not be effectively addressed without reforming the way government operates.
He further claimed that Nigeria had not experienced a government that sufficiently reflected the governing principles contained in the Constitution since 1999.
“We don’t have a government, it is not just the one who is there now, President Tinubu. Since 1999, we have not had a government close to what we wrote in the Constitution,” he said.
He identified three principles, which according to him, should be non-negotiable regardless of the differences among political parties to include, democratic elections as the means of forming government, governance according to law and approved appropriations and accountability with a firm rejection of corruption.
Addressing food insecurity, he said Nigeria must move away from excessive dependence on imports and develop its agricultural production capacity.
He described himself as a net producer and exporter of agricultural products, citing his investments in farming and cattle production as evidence of his understanding of the agricultural sector.
He argued that food security could not be achieved through rhetoric or imports alone, but through deliberate investment in agriculture and productive capacity.
He challenged political leaders to demonstrate practical commitment to agriculture rather than merely making promises about food security.
He urged Nigerians to scrutinise the programmes and records of political parties and candidates before voting in 2027, saying the country’s future depended ultimately on the quality of choices made by the electorate.
“Your choice is to vote candidates and parties according to what they present to you,” he said.
Adebayo’s appearance at the NBA conference placed his campaign’s central message, “Farewell to Poverty and Insecurity,” alongside his broader call for constitutional governance, institutional reform, economic production, accountability and a departure from what he described as Nigeria’s entrenched politics of ethnicity, religion and money.
