The presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Adewole Adebayo, has stated that the 2023 general election was a contest against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) rather than political opponents.

Adebayo, who alleged that the outcome of the 2023 election was fraudulent and a charade, urged that the 2027 polls must be free from any form of institutional interference.

During an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, monitored by The Guardian, Adebayo, who dismissed calls for a coalition of only opposition parties, argued for an alliance of all Nigerians to rescue the country from what he termed a failed administration.

The SDP standard bearer, whose candidacy for the 2027 presidential election was recently confirmed by INEC following the publication of the final list of candidates, said the electoral commission’s role is simply to collect and disseminate information submitted by political parties and not to vet candidates or act as a gatekeeper.

While dismissing reports of internal crisis within the SDP, he maintained that the discourse surrounding the election should focus on substantive governance issues rather than personalities.

Adebayo said, “The job of INEC is to ensure that the political parties submit the names, collate the names, and send the information to the general public. So, it is not like we are looking for employment from INEC. INEC is our servant; it is working for the public.

“What we need to emphasize is not to congratulate candidates; it is to find a government that works for the Nigerian people so that the conversations around this election season are directly related to the developmental challenges around which we want to form a government.

“We need to sound the right issues; otherwise, it will become another enlarged version of Big Brother Africa while you will be discussing personalities and idiosyncrasies. Whereas we need to discuss the country, the state of development, the tools available to us as a people, the kind of government we form wrongly, the kind of government we form rightly, and who should be in charge.”

“In 2023, I contested against INEC. INEC was the opponent. What happened in 2023 was not good at all. All those numbers are fake. The whole thing was a charade,” he asserted. Anyone who is making analysis based on the 2023 election is legitimizing fraud.

“Nobody should use the number and go to the Villa and govern anybody because you can’t govern out of fraud or out of manipulation. So, we cannot normalize the number.”

He claimed that many National Assembly members have been stripped of their democratic rights, alleging that Tinubu maintains a “book of life” that determines who can return to office.

“Many of the National Assembly members have been robbed of their own democratic rights too. Many of them now can’t come back because they are not in the book of life that President Tinubu is keeping to himself.

“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 in primary, they will remove your name and put someone whose name is in book of life there.

“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.

“So President Tinubu is three years plus has defeated the essence of government, the purpose of government, defeated the essence of the republic and he has become a one man character with a few audience of his own that are following him up and down.”

“His Eminence, Cardinal Onayeikan is saying things that we the laymen had been saying for some time. The President does not see himself as Head of State when it comes to this election matter; he sees himself as a wrestler, ready to wrestle in the mud. That is the attitude of the President,” Adebayo said. (The Guardian)

Update news