Adewole Adebayo, presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), says four years is enough for a “determined” leader to do right by the citizens.
Adebayo spoke on Tuesday in Abuja while unveiling the SDP’s
2027–2031 policy document, titled “Farewell to Poverty and Insecurity”.
He described the document as the party’s blueprint for
tackling Nigeria’s security, economic and infrastructure challenges.
The SDP candidate cited the administration of Lateef
Jakande, former governor of Lagos, as an example of what a focused government
can achieve within four years.
“When Jakande got to Lagos, three sets of students had to
use one classroom. In Lagos, if you tried to drive your car on Monday, you
could not drive it on Tuesday because of congestion,” Adebayo said.
“People were piling on top of each other, living in Ebute
Metta and all those places. Jakande did housing, education and everything,
including transportation and metro line planning, in four years.
“Four years is enough for a determined leader to help his
people. Forty years is not enough for thieves to milk you dry.”
Adebayo said the SDP policy document focuses on human
development, citizens’ dignity and affordable infrastructure that can be
financed within the country’s income.
He said the plan would increase electricity generation to
75,000 megawatts and establish four functioning public refineries among other
deliverables in the downstream sector.
“This plan will give you four functioning public refineries,
will give you 36 modular refineries, and will allow private investors to put
their refineries in Nigeria and export their own overseas,” he said.
The SDP presidential candidate also addressed the ongoing
debate over petrol subsidy, saying Nigerians should not be made to buy the
commodity at international prices without getting income commensurate with
global standards.
“No Nigerian should be living in Nigeria, buying petrol at
an international price without getting the salary of the international labour,”
he said.
“That’s why we calculated it and said N200 at current rates
is the price at which you can sell petrol, and you will not push the people
into poverty.”
Adebayo blamed the naira’s depreciation on alleged
mismanagement and theft of national revenue.
“What is happening is that even if you tell the people in
government to sell petrol at N3,000, they will still declare a loss because
they cannot keep the value of the currency,” he said.
“And the currency is depreciating because, first, the money
we make from our national income- petrol, solid minerals, taxes- is being
stolen in broad daylight.
“They just collude with the criminals; they have a CBN to
print money. At the end of the day, we have empty paper.”
The SDP presidential candidate will be making a second
appearance on the ballot in 2027 after contesting the presidency in 2023 under
the same party.
He will be up against President Bola Tinubu, who is seeking
re-election; Peter Obi, the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) candidate; and
former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar of the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
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