The 2023 presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party SDP, Prince Adewole Adebayo, has warned that old politicians will continue to dominate Nigerians political landscape for a long time to come except Nigerians rise to support a coalition or an alliance of young and new political structures that would wrestle power from the ‘conservatives’ dominating the affairs of the country.
While speaking during an online discussion programme anchored by Rudolf Okonkwo, ‘90 Minutes Africa,’ Adewole argued that the alliance with the support of the masses, will ensure that the old parties and their candidates are rested for good.
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He said the majority of the new political parties and their candidates were running their race individually during the campaign, which according to him, reduced the collective strength of the young and new entrants.
“When you are in the race, you are the most intelligent candidate. That is what you keep hearing. And everyone is hearing that in their own silos. But over time, the person who wins is most likely who has the majority of the people working for them. Whether for good or for bad that’s another thing entirely. In the course of the campaign, the candidate I met everywhere was Tinubu. There is always one governor, one senator, one Reps member, one traditional ruler working for him everywhere you go. I think we need to do that too with better and positive people. It’s very difficult though because we don’t agree on the same thing,” he said.
Adebayo said that attempts at working with other parties during the 2023 election couldn’t work because he discovered that some of the people representing the parties were mere placeholders who had no power of their own to decide their fate.
“Many of the people in politics are merely agents, not principals. The reason why Buhari and Tinubu could form a coalition is because Buhari isn’t anybody’s boy. He was the leader of his own team. Tinubu isn’t a follower of anybody. He is not anybody’s boy. But some of these people may be forming alliances with them while in actual fact they are working for other people. And once they call them into the room and tell them what to do that’s exactly what they will do. The people you want to follow are also following and shadowing some people too,” he opined.
Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, won the 2023 presidential election and is expected to be sworn-in on May 29
