….says many troop to it as only united party without factions
By Haruna Salami
As the scheming for political offices in Nigeria for 2027 slowly gathers momentum, especially for the highest office in the land the speculation that the Social Democratic Party (SDP) party is in Tinubu’s pocket has been debunked by the National Legal Adviser of the party, Aderemi Abimbola.
Since the former governor of Kaduna state, Nasir El-rufai formally joined the SDP Tuesday, a lot of attention has been drawn to the party and what the shrewd political may be up to in the politics of 2027.
Speaking with PenMaster at the party headquarters in Abuja, the National Legal Adviser said since he joined the party in 2022, he has never seen Tinubu hands in it.
Describing El-rufai’s defection to the party as “a blessing”, Mr. Abimbola said so many people have been coming even since last year, but maybe because they are not as prominent as El-rufai that is why people don’t know.
“SDP has been receiving visitors. It’s like every day. In fact, since the beginning of this year, we have received so many from all the states in the north. Before El-rufai came yesterday, the people from APC supporters in Gombe were here. One of them was the DG of even the campaign of the present governor”.
He said the fortune of the party is soaring because “this is the only party you can say without any crisis, no faction. We have our chairman with commitment and he doesn’t take decisions unilaterally anyway. He consults, and people outside here listening to him in the media, they believe in him too. Many times, some of them come here because they said they have listened to him on television and they believe that this is the party of the future in Nigeria. Nigeria should look up to a party that can salvage the situation for us”.
To buttress his point that Tinubu does not own or control SDP as being speculated, Abimbola said since he joined, he can say categorically that he has not received up to N2 million altogether as salary and as sitting allowance, which they are entitled to at any sitting because they don’t have it.
“So, if Tinubu is supporting the party, can we be broke? Tinubu was a member of SDP in the 1992-93. Since I joined this party in 2022, I’ve not seen Tinubu’s hand or any of his agents. I know them; I’m from Lagos too. I lived in Lagos for 30 years before coming to Abuja. So there’s no way I can see Tinubu’s ally and I you won’t know? None of them has ever been here since I joined”, he said.
Speaking on the economic situation in Nigeria today he said “how do we find ourselves here? When I was in school, meal ticket was 10 kobo, 20 kobo. 10 kobo for breakfast, 20 kobo for lunch, 20 kobo for dinner. This country is still the best. We can still repeat it. It’s a blessed country. If there’s any country that the Bible says is flowing with milk and honey, Nigeria is the only country. Don’t let us deceive ourselves.
According to him, everybody that travels abroad, do they have the kind of resources we have? The answer is no. I’ve traveled abroad several times. When I was an undergraduate, how much was the ticket? N250 for students. When I was serving in NYSC, I was traveling with N350 to London. Up to 1985, it was 500 naira to buy British Airways ticket. All of a sudden, the inflation started and we found ourselves here.
Now, a dollar to a naira exchange rate is N1,500. When this administration came on board, it was below one thousand naira. People should know it that if the present administration had found capable hands like Okonjo-Iweala, we could not have found ourselves this way. It’s good you have been elected, but you need capable hands to run the administration.
“Obasanjo looked beyond the party to the extent that all the debts incurred by the administration of General Abacha were cleared. This is a blessed countr;y nearly all the states in the federation have one mineral resources or the other. The way forward is this, let those powers under the constitution the devolved to the states or the regions to manage. You will see the difference; Western region was developed with cocoa money only and they had the first television station, the first stadium, the first …, you know what I mean? I was a beneficiary of free education of the Western region. Up to university level, you are not paying tuition. I only paid for accommodation and feeding.
