The presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 2023 general elections, Prince Adewole Adebayo, has taken a swipe at President Bola Tinubu’s government, describing it as rudderless.

Prince Adebayo was reacting to the worsening security situation across the country in a television programme recently.

He insisted that electing Tinubu as president was a big mistake considering the dire security situation in which Nigerians currently find themselves.

He lamented that President Tinubu has failed in all aspects of human life, ranging from the critical to primary, basic and even tertiary issues.

“You can’t fail in every aspect. You fail in security, you fail in economy, you fail in culture and you fail in sports. So, you fail in everything, and you expect that people are going to remark on those failures,” he added.

He also lamented that the vast resources of Nigeria located in the northern part of the country are being wasted due to the level of insecurity, even as he warned that the entire north is closer to Somalia than it is to what Nigeria used to be.

“So, you cannot Afghanistasize your own country and expect people to sing your praises. You cannot take every index that you meet and make it worse. Unemployment is worse. Inflation is worse. Security is worse. International profile of the country is worse.

“You either don’t have the competence to appoint ambassadors or you can’t find competent ambassadors to appoint. Either side of the coin is a failure. So, you can’t police the state. You can’t secure the state. You fail. You don’t even have enough mental capacity to explain your failure.”

Describing the Tinubu government as rudderless with no clear-cut direction of movement, he said: “From all indications, the government has lost its map and it’s just waking up every day reacting to any new incident or the umbrage whether local or international. There is no rational observer who would say, this is the trajectory of where the presidency was headed to.

“President Tinubu has lost control of his own government which he hasn’t had time to put together to start with. And however much you speak for the government you cannot say that where they are now in 2025 was where they planned to be when they were planning a year ago or two years ago.”

He also compared the government with a ship captain that has lost direction, saying, “They definitely are in the wilderness. And if the captain of a ship cannot find his way to the bridge and he’s not able to locate where the ship is situated, or determine the direction the ship is going, then he has no control over the speed of the sail, and the passengers on that ship are either attached to a new captain or they give up on that ship. But you cannot give up on Nigeria. So, it is easier to say that we have a bad government in a good country than to say we have a bad country.”

He noted that Nigeria, if well managed, is second to none, just as he tackled the ruling government for saying that the opposition parties were exploiting the current security misfortune to score political points.

“If the president wants to be helped, from what we say, he can pick up enough help. But if they say we are making the capital of misfortune, then they are producing too many misfortunes because if you think that the opposition is taking advantage of your misfortune, then you should reduce the amount of misfortune you have,” he said.

On US President Donald Trump’s characterisation of Nigeria as a disgraced country, Adebayo disagreed, saying, “I don’t agree with President Trump that we’re a disgraced country. But he’s speaking the language of international diplomacy. What he meant is that the Tinubu administration is a disgraced government because Nigeria is not a disgrace. Nigeria is not a failure.

“It’s like when 11 people are on the field playing for Nigeria and if they concede two goals they will say 2-0 against Nigeria. It doesn’t mean that all of us are on the field playing, but they are representing Nigeria. President Tinubu on the international stage represents Nigeria. And his scorecard is disgraceful.

“So, those who are outside don’t see you, they don’t see me, they see the government of the day. And the government of the day, if you look at it, is a failure in every aspect that is important. So, the counterpart overseas is entitled to say that this country has failed because the government that they see has failed. They see the secret of the government; they see what the government ought to see that it cannot see. They see the yearning gap in the international space that the leadership of the country ought to fill.

“And when they don’t see them, they say they are a failure. But it doesn’t mean that all of us are a failure because it’s not evaluating all of us; it’s evaluating the government of the day.”

(The Sun)