—- Says 2027 must be free of institutional interference
— l contested against INEC in 2023, describes results as charade
—Nigeria needs ‘alliance of all Nigerians,’ not just opposition coalition
By Dayo Johnson Akure
The Social Democratic Party, SDP, presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Adewole Adebayo, has alleged that many National Assembly members failed to secure return tickets because their names were not in “the book of life” allegedly kept by President Bola Tinubu.
Adebayo made the claim during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, monitored in Akure, Ondo State.
According to him, several lawmakers have been “stripped of their democratic rights.”
“He has a book of life. If your name is on it, you’ll win your primaries. If your name is not on that book of life, it doesn’t matter how popular you are with your people. Even if you won the primary, they will remove your name and put someone whose name is in the book of life there,” Adebayo alleged.
He accused the Tinubu administration of defeating the purpose of government.
“President Tinubu has defeated himself because you cannot fail to defeat yourself as a government if the collective summary of your service is that you have defeated the purpose of government. In three years plus, he has defeated the essence of the republic,” he said.
2023 Election: ‘I Contested Against INEC’
Speaking on the 2023 polls, Adebayo said the contest was against the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, rather than political opponents.
He described the outcome as “fraudulent and a charade,” and said anyone basing analysis on the 2023 results was “legitimizing fraud.”
“The whole thing was a charade. Nobody should use the number and go to the Villa and govern anybody because you can’t govern out of fraud or manipulation. So, we cannot normalize the number,” he asserted.
Focus on Governance, Not Personality
Adebayo dismissed calls for a coalition of only opposition parties, saying what Nigeria needs is “an alliance of all Nigerians” to rescue the country from what he termed a failed administration.
He also said INEC’s role should be limited to collecting and disseminating information submitted by political parties, not vetting candidates.
“The job of INEC is to ensure that political parties submit names, collate the names, and send the information to the general public. INEC is our servant; it is working for the public,” he said.
He urged that discourse ahead of 2027 should focus on developmental challenges rather than personalities.
“We need to sound the right issues; otherwise, it will become another enlarged version of Big Brother Africa while you discuss personalities and idiocracies,” he added.
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