Poverty, insecurity, lack of accountability, more dangerous to Nigeria than ethnicity, declares Adebayo, SDP presidential candidate
*Insists service to nation without material gains is his focus
*Says Tinubu mustn’t fail
By Lateef Ibrahim, Abuja
The 2023 presidential elections have been won and lost. Few days from today, the Buhari administration would cease to exist as the new President elect Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu will be sworn in as President of the Federal Republic for the next four years. Congratulations in advance to him.
However, while some of the contestants are sulking and licking their wounds, one of them is already busy, galvanizing and raising awareness of the people towards the next elections cycle – 2027 .
Prince Adewole Ebenezer Adebayo was the flagbearer of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, during the presidential election. He lost. He was disappointed, but he was not surprised. With the benefit of hindsight and, given the double faced politicians around him who promised block votes, there was no way he could have won. Besides, he came into the game barely a year to the election, compared to the established politicians like Tinubu, Atiku and Obi.
Adebayo was a special guest to ’90 Minutes Africa, ” an online discussion programme anchored by Rudolf Okonkwo (Dr. Damages) with more 4,000 viewers and panellists.
In the over 10-hour question and answer session, he explained why Nigeria isn’t moving, what the Nigerians must do especially in the next election cycle, if they truly desire change, even as he criticized the hypocritical nature of both the leadership and the people.
A successful international lawyer and businessman, Adebayo canvassed, severally, more than a year before the election for a coalition force that would challenge the two biggest established parties, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the ruling party All Progressives Congress (APC) because, according to him, that (coalition) was the only way there could be a new order in governance outside the old order. He sought the view and cooperation of the like minds in Professors Pat Utomi, Moghalu and few others with a view to forming alliance that would challenge the dominance of both APC and PDP and more importantly, wrestle power from the ruling party, APC.
Their non-committal to the arrangement forced him to throw his hat into the ring. According to him, “I wanted us to have a broad based third force political party. But it turned out that my spirit overtook everyone, especially during my last discussion with Pat Utomi, when I told him that if you don’t want to run, I will. I don’t want to escort politicians to the Villa. Once they enter there, they shut the door, they start doing what they were doing before, and you lose your credibility. If you want to know how quickly you lose your credibility, go and look for one of the most energetic, brilliant young men in Nigeria, Festus Keyamo. You can not say you love Nigeria more than Keyamo, but he escorted the wrong people, and he lost it since that time. How many more can we lose? ”
A focal point of Adebayo’s campaign during the election was the revenue accruing to Nigeria and how mismanagement and corruption took and still taking a large chunk of 80% to private pockets, leaving the balance to run the economy. He said corruption thrive when those saddled to engage it become accomplices. “We are a country of accomplices. We don’t like corruption, but we praise our leaders who are stupendously rich. Nigeria is losing 80% of its revenue outside the book. The oil being stolen and sold is more than the ones official being declared. If you judge what is in the budget, you have already missed your way because the majority of Nigerian money is spent outside the budget such that by the time the budget is brought, the money is already gone. The majority of the money collected in Customs isn’t accounted for except you want to tell me you haven’t brought in container into the country before. You pay more to the people than the government on many occasions. If you sell 100 barrels of oil, NNPC won’t collect more than 15 barrels because 85 barrels have disappeared. I have said this severally during the campaign, but nobody seems bothered. In Holland, there are tank farms storing Nigerian stolen oil, same with China. We have stolen oil there that were not paid for. It got to a point, especially during the election that some Chinese approached a Nigerian embassy official and told him that ‘we have your crude here with us let them know that we haven’t paid for the crude and it is here with us’. The person is still alive. He went to meet the late Abba Kyari (late Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari) and said, “Sir, I am your trade officer in China.” The man’s name is Agboluaje. He said billions of dollars sold that it has not been paid for. He said he (Kyari) should bring all the documents. He brought the documents. That was the last time he entered villa”, the SDP presidential candidate said.
Adebayo took a swipe at the Vice-President-elect, Senator Kashim Shettima, as a hypocrite. Shettima was reported to have warned his party members at the National Assembly of electing Muslims as heads of both legislative chambers as such action could further fuel the notion of islamization of Nigeria.
According to him, “That smacks off hypocrisy if indeed he said that. If I see him, I will say ‘Otutuoma'(Good morning in Akwa Ibom language). It’s too late in the day to realize that. If you thought about that, you shouldn’t have taken your own nomination when you were given. However, religion and ethnicity are not my problems. What I care about is poverty insecurity and accountability so that we can realize our potential as a country. ”
Service to motherland, without material gain, has been a continuous project for Adebayo. On several occasions, he has had to bring experts to Nigeria to help with one problem or the other plaguing the country. Unfortunately, most of the time, as with Nigerian case, such novel solutions always meet with man made impediments. At a time he wanted to help and support the government to stop the bleeding going on in the energy sector especially crude oil. All his efforts amounted to nothing eventually. He recalled a particular experience with former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.: “This experience is just to show how committed I am to this country. Before I ran for office, I spent days with former President Jonathan at the Villa, bringing experts to him, showing him how they are stealing the crude. As President of Nigerian, he gave me a warm embrace and thanked me. I thought they were going to give me GCFR that day. Dezieani (the then Minister of Petroleum, Deziani Allison Madueke) was there. Ruben Abati was there. Pius Ayim, the Secretary to Government then, was there, and the Chief of Staff was there.They even used government money to pay tickets for the experts to come into the country. That was the end. Everyone was there. So there is nothing unknown to them about how our oil is being stolen. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have hired Tom Polo to monitor the pipelines for them.”.
Nigeria’s stolen wealth, according to Adebayo’s research, is in the region of $300b annually. Said he: “They steal, without much efforts, about $300b annually. The marine sector would be losing about $10b annually. Interior ministry will be losing $2b easily. If you check the Defence, you can see the billionaire generals who are still in service, and some of them are even sponsoring governors in their states . Customs will be losing about $12b annually. From the aviation sector, they would be losing $3b annually.
If you alerted a person driving a car that he has a flat tyre and yet, he continues driving. You have done your part because he alone knows why he is driving like that”.
Adebayo said his party agents and officials contributed to his election loss, and some of them were only concerned about their pockets rather than the collective goal of making the country better for all.
His words, “Not all my agents worked for me. Some may look at my picture and say this didn’t have money and went to collect from other parry. In a particular state, our agents said INEC didn’t give them accreditation cards. We asked why. They said they didn’t know. We went to INEC. It said the state chairman of our party came together with PDP . Each of the chairmen collected for their parties, and then the SDP chairman gave the tag to the PDP chairman, shook hands, and drove away. On that election day, you would see someone wearing an SDP tag, but he is definitely working for Atiku. Some of them are helping APC. Some work for labour, I think in Delta Anambra and some parts of the East.”.
Asked if he was invited to the inauguration of president elect Tinubu, despite his criticisms, he nodded on affirmative, explaining that the presidency isn’t a personal property of any president, adding, ” the moment he is sworn in as the president, he becomes my and our president. I must ensure that he doesn’t fail. If he fails, Nigeria fails. If I am invited, which I doubt, I will go because it is the patriotic thing to do. Though I am angry and jealous. But it’s a national event all the same”.
