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Former presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Adewole Adebayo, has declared that politicians in Nigeria are not playing true opposition politics.
According to him, there is no clear-cut ideology or focus that differentiates politicians and political parties in Nigeria.
Naija News reports that the former presidential candidate made the submission in an interview with Vanguard while answering a question on the recent wave of defections to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
He submitted that there is no genuine opposition politician in Nigeria, as what the current crop of defecting politicians are doing is simply making rearrangements and moving from one room to the other in the same house.
He disagreed with some school of thought that opposition members were defecting because President Bola Tinubu is providing good leadership.
Adebayo was of the opinion that more people are defecting to the SDP than the APC.
According to him, “Number one, where is the real opposition in Nigeria? The people that you call opposition are establishment politicians who are changing from one establishment party to the other.
“So, someone who is in PDP cannot say that he is in opposition, because after the APC, the PDP has the highest number of governors, senators, House of Representatives members and Houses of Assembly members. And even in the APC government of President Tinubu, PDP has ministers in it. So, they are moving from one room to the other in the same house. That is not relocation; that is just mere rearrangement within the house.
“So, I am yet to see anybody who is a genuine opposition politician, who is in opposition because they don’t like the ideology and methodology and the outcome of these establishment politicians. Such people won’t be able to move. And for us in the SDP, we have seen a lot of people moving to us as well. I think more people are moving to the SDP than they are moving to the APC. And we welcome those who are moving to the SDP, but we always ask ourselves the questions: If you move to us, has your mind moved to us? Do you now believe in what we believe? If you are part of those who have been giving problems to Nigeria, are you willing to change? Are you repenting? If you are, you’ve had policies that hurt the poor, you have done injustice and you have misused public resources.
“The mere fact that you have changed from APC to SDP, should we forget about all of that and should we not address these issues? So, we don’t look at counting governors, senators, former this, or former that. We are trying to mobilise Nigerians to change politics.”
Effect On The Masses
Adewole advanced further that when changing parties has no positive effect on Nigerians, there is nothing to write home about it. He concluded by saying politicians are free to pitch their tent with any party, as what the people want is good governance.
“Changing parties without changing politics is of no importance to the poor man. APC is ruling and the poor man is crying. As far as the poor man is concerned, it is not the logo of the party that is inflicting the punishment on them. It is the people in the party. Why is it that in a country rich and full of resources like ours, poverty is increasing, insecurity is increasing, injustice is increasing, corruption is increasing, and underdevelopment is getting deeper? That is the question, so, whichever party you move to is really your personal choice,” he said.
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