Tinubu's absence from peace accord meeting shows he’s not

The presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Prince Adewole Adebayo, has condemned President Bola Tinubu’s absence from the 2027 Electoral Peace Accord event, noting that his absence showed the president is not committed to peace in the 2027 election.

He said genuine peace in Nigeria’s electoral process could only be achieved when there is justice, transparency and strict adherence to the law.

Adebayo, who spoke in an interview after signing the, said political parties and candidates should not regard the agreement as a favour to the country, but as a commitment toconduct themselves in accordance with the law.

He also spoke about the need for greater independence for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the need for the security agencies to remain neutral, among others.

You signed the peace accord. What exactly did you commit to?

Basically, what I committed to is what the law says, which is that elections must be based on issues.

We have always campaigned on issues. We do not attack personalities and we do not campaign against identities. We do not use identity to campaign. There is no issue of religion, ethnicity and all of that. We totally avoid hate speech and we don’t use bad language. We don’t use fake news. We don’t use false propaganda and we try as much as possible to comply with the Electoral Act in terms of how to conduct rallies.

We totally avoid violence. We don’t use thugs. We don’t pay thugs. We don’t buy votes and we don’t sell votes. We don’t do money politics. We respect the office that we are running for and we conduct ourselves as if we have already taken the oath of office for that position.

That is what I signed today and that is what I am committed to. I signed not only with my hand; I signed with my heart and I intend to live up to it.

I also commend the Peace Committee for taking this matter seriously, even though some people in the political space, especially those in government, take it as a joke and are not serious about it.

However, the Peace Committee is taking it seriously. The chairman and members of the committee have shown Nigerians that it is possible to pursue a national objective without being in government and to do so consistently over the years in search of peace.

The reason we have not managed to have peace so far is because peace is impossible without justice. Electoral justice will bring peace automatically in a system where every player in the electoral process follows the law; where the government of the day does not put its thumb on the scale; where the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is truly independent

and follows the mandate given to it to conduct free, fair and credible elections and where voters vote according to their conscience and consciousness.

Whether they vote for the right person or not, let them vote freely, without inducement and without harassment. Let the result be the mathematical and arithmetical exactitude of what the voters actually voted. That will automatically bring peace.

You don’t even need a Peace Committee searching for peace that is not missing, because the tool for getting peace is justice. When you do electoral justice, peace will come automatically.

So, are you saying that there is no peace without justice? And are you also saying that you do not trust the electoral system under which you are asking people to vote?

What I am saying is that the electoral system needs a lot of improvement. When I become president, I will not short-circuit INEC as chairman. I will not control its money.

That’s not your forte, because the law says if you become president, you determine that…

I will change the law because laws are made by people. Those laws do not write themselves.

In fact, when President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua came into office, one of the things he agreed with us on was to set up a panel to change that system. So, depending on the circumstances at that time, we will work to make INEC independent.

Let the law enforcement agencies, including the police, the Department of State Services (DSS), the Civil Defence Corps and all branches of the military, be totally agnostic to politics. Let them not influence politics. Let them not take political instructions. Let their presence during elections not even be a subject for discussion. Let elections be free, fair and civilised.

With that, I can guarantee you that, as president, the Peace Committee will be idle during my time, because the person who has the greatest possibility of establishing peace in the land is the President of the country or the governor of a state.

If you look at recent elections, peace accords were signed. Yet, if you look at some of those governors, who left their states and were seen making trouble here and there, including the Minister of the FCT, who said, “If I was there, APC would not have lost,” those are

the kinds of things that threaten peace.

Is it a crime for you to go and support your party member? Don’t you go around to support candidates running for election under your platform?

There are two things we need to consider. One, when you go to campaign, you don’t go as a lawless wanderer. You go peacefully like any other person. You make speeches that are

consistent with the peace and good governance of the place and you do not come and display massive state power.

You go in a civilised way. If you have friends in a state, you use your friendship and goodwill. You go and campaign and say, “Vote for my party,” but not through this organised invasion that they displayed. It is not proper. Those are the things, which, if you do them, will make a difference.

I want us to understand that in signing the peace accord, we are not doing the country a favour. We are committing ourselves to what we ordinarily should do.

When I read through it, I didn’t see anything that I wasn’t already doing included there.

I think it is in the Bible that they say it is only the sick who need the physician and the people who needed the physician did not come today.

President Tinubu refused to come. Maybe, he doesn’t want to be committed to it. Maybe he feels that…

He sent the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) to represent him. Was that not enough?

Oh, please! This is an insult to the process. The SGF is not involved in the election. You have your Vice President, who could have come.

I don’t see any reason President Tinubu, who works and lives in Abuja and who has the influence to determine when the event would be held and who gave an indication that he would come, failed to attend.

I think he has been missing in action for some time. I don’t know if you, as reporters, have noticed. I don’t know if he is a ghost worker or whatever he is, because a president cannot be so invisible like that.

We want to move Nigeria away from the poverty that has afflicted it for decades, so that no Nigerian will say that poverty is his or her destiny for life under our government. That is what we are focused on.

But it is important that this election be conducted in an atmosphere that is free, fair, credible and peaceful.

President Tinubu’s failure to show up today is sending the signal that he is not committed to peace. He is sending the wrong signal to law enforcement agencies and to people who work for the government that the President does not appear to be committed enough.

He needs to correct that by making a clear statement, explaining why he was absent and making sure that he commits himself publicly to peace.

Don’t you think he could have been held up by issues of the state?

There is no issue of state greater than the President showing that democracy is important.

What if it was something to do with national security?

There is no greater national security than the continuity of the state. The state has to assist and a free, fair and credible election is important for establishing civil government.

What moral event of today can be considered equal to issues of national security?

It is the most important issue in the country because of the continuity of democracy. It is this process that made him president, the process of election. Four years ago, he was around, and now he can’t come.

The most committed president so far since the process began has been President Goodluck Jonathan. It is good for you as a leader to signal that we are a civilised society and that we believe in the peace process.

If we look at eminent Nigerians such as John Onaiyekan and other people who are in that Peace Committee, Professor Ameze Gubadia, General Martin Luther Agwai and others, these are eminent people in their respective careers, who could have been president if they had

run for election.

So, it is important for the President to be serious and send that signal down because as the leader of the country, if you say peace doesn’t matter, then you can be absent.

From what I understand, everything was done to accommodate the President, including the timing and date and he gave his word that he was going to be there.

It is something personal because he is the one elected; he is the one who will make the commitment.

I have a feeling that, in addition to President Tinubu’s tardy way of behaving recently, where he doesn’t show up and just locks himself up somewhere, nobody knows where he is, he has contempt for the peace process. He doesn’t want to sit down and commit himself to being peaceful.

Legally speaking, he is not bound by it. It is a moral issue, not a legal issue. Is that correct?

He is bound by it because he has a constitutional mandate to be a moral leader. When he took that oath of office on May 29, 2023, he swore to respect the Constitution of Nigeria.

The Constitution of Nigeria says we should have free, fair and credible elections. The Electoral Act also has provisions which the President and his people violated in Oshodi.

Do you know what it means for a country to be clapping and saying that we had a governorship election when there were 41 people or more in the mortuary? How do you do that? What kind of country allows a system where people lose their lives and limbs, where people are lynched in the afternoon?

A president who has seen that should use this opportunity to come forward and even make a comment, saying, “My government will investigate what happened in Oshodi. It will not happen again.”

President Tinubu has proven that it is a moral failure, and a moral failure is not what the country needs to be.

Oh, okay. Today?

We understand that he has had a closed-door meeting with the Senate President…

Closing his door is not doing our work. I’m talking about the President showing up in places where presidents are supposed to show up.

Do you count his absence as an insult, or how do you interpret it? If you were President Tinubu and you had other presidential candidates…

I should be president myself. I can’t be President Bola Tinubu. That’s not a good example to use.

I can’t say it is an insult because Tinubu’s behaviour generally is an insult. His regular behaviour is an insult to the country: the way he speaks, the way he conducts his affairs and the way he does not obey the law.

His standard behaviour as president is already an automatic insult to the country and he thinks he can do things anyhow.

I want to be respectful, but you cannot be running presidential lawlessness. A system where the president has no code of conduct, I don’t know whether he has no advisers.

The President is the tone-setter for the country. So, to disregard things and disparage things, the President wanted to ridicule the process by his absence, and by the nonchalance with which he handled it and by the level of deputation that he made.

If you are signing a contract, you cannot designate somebody who has no capacity to sign the contract. If it was a contract, which it is, it would not be valid.

But in law, subrogation is allowed or don’t you believe so?

Subrogation is allowed where the law establishing that power allows subrogation. In fact, in law, you cannot delegate certain things; you cannot.

What about Atiku? You are talking only about Tinubu. Atiku and the ADC were also absent. What do you have to say about that?

You know, Atiku is a person seeking the presidency, not the President. The President has a duty to the country. I have a duty to the country, but my duty is less than that of the President. When I become president, you will see my behaviour.

INEC said it is committed, is not biased, does not belong to any political party and will conduct free, fair and credible elections. Do you believe INEC?

I say Amen. It’s a prayer and it is something we need to make happen. It is not that INEC can make it happen on its own. It is a desire that I can never go against. But there are steps we need to take.

I don’t even know whether INEC has received all the money it needs to conduct the election, because President Tinubu and his government have managed to put INEC in a position where it cannot plan properly.

They are holding its money. They are holding it to ransom. I think INEC doesn’t belong to the President. It doesn’t belong to any candidate. It doesn’t belong to any party. That is the law of the land.

It is left for Nigerians to make sure that this election is one we take advantage of and that we do all we can to participate.

There are over 100 million voters. We should try to get at least 85 to 90 million people to come out and vote according to their conscience, without selling their votes. That is important.

As for the campaign, you will see that the SDP has brought its manifesto, focused on poverty and insecurity, and we will launch it very soon in Abuja.

We are already going around the country, exchanging ideas with people, talking to sector leaders and talking to all shades of opinions in the country to develop everything contained in Chapter Two of our Constitution, which is the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy.

We want to see a country where no one is hungry, no one is homeless, no one is without medical care, no one who wants to work is without employment and every child is guaranteed the maximum education necessary to develop his or her talent. Those are the things the SDP will sell.