…We’ll field strong presidential candidate
By Henry Umoru, Assistant Politics Editor
Mr Araba Rufus Aiyenigba is the national publicity secretary of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, the second oldest political party at the moment in the country after the Peoples Redemption Party, PRP.
In this interview, he speaks about the SDP, issues the party is contending with, suspension of its Chairman, the formation of a factional National Working Committee, NWC, coalition, and its 2027 presidential ticket among others.
How is your party, the SDP?
The Social Democratic Party is in good shape and getting better positioned to go into the 2027 general elections and beyond. The party had, in recent times, gone through very important internal reform process to cleanse itself, self-regulate, restructure and strengthen its national structure across Nigeria from the National Working Committee, NWC down to the zonal levels where you have the National Vice-Chairmen of the six zones, the states, local governments and the wards.
It is safe to say that today SDP is better positioned than as it was in 2023 in terms of national structure, cohesion, and capacity to be an effective national political party.
In May this year, we had the NWC fully constituted to have a full complement of members. Before May, we did not have the statutory membership, there were vacant positions. All the position were filled on May 15.
We had the Deputy National Chairman, North and South and the National Financial Secretary brought in and have a full complement of the 15 members required by the constitution. On June 24, we had a major cleansing operation. We were deliberate and intentional in bringing that about. We corrected the errors and anomaly in the structure in terms of integrity, public perception and public rating of our system operations and our internal mechanism.
And that manifested in the National Working Committee moving by majority resolution to suspend our National Chairman, Alhaji Shehu Gabam, and two others, over cases of maladministration, gross-violation of the provisions of the constitution.
Penultimate Thursday the whole complement of the National Working Committee visited the former Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida, to felicitate with him on his 84th birthday.
The party is up and running, and participated in the last bye-elections that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, conducted across the 12 states and 16 constituencies in the country.
What is your take on the conduct of the bye-elections? Are you pleased with the performance of the INEC?
INEC is a work in progress, just as the nation itself is a work in progress. We have made our position known after the elections. INEC did not really do well in curtailing some of the gray areas, and excesses. In the election, there were reports of gross violations of the Electoral Act, vote-buying was rampant, people stuffing ballot boxes. All of these things were witnessed in the election. And there are videos of infractions.
We could do better. And it was for that reason that we said that the outcome of the election brought to the fore the imperative of fundamental electoral reform. We must be deliberate and intentional about it because if the election is not fair and the process is not credible, you cannot get the will of the people, and voice of the people. And the moment the people lose interest in the process, we have lost it.
The current INEC chairman is on his way out, he’s rounding off his tour of duty. So we’re looking forward to the next man or woman who will come in.
Don’t you think your punishment to the chairman is severe?
We were following the process and trying to deploy internal mechanism to see that we could checkmate all of these things. It didn’t just happen overnight. It took time. He began to evade, run away from meetings, formal meetings. It is statutory responsibility of the National Chairman to call for NEC, NWC meetings. Between 2022 and now, he did not convene NEC meeting for once.
And the constitution says, you are to call NEC meeting at least twice in a year. So he was expected to have organised NEC a minimum of six times in a period of three years, he never did. Even the NWC for over one year, he never called a formal NWC. Why? Because there were issues that he was not comfortable with putting on the table. And so when it got to that point, we had to take the bull by the horns.
We are moving towards 2027, the present NWC came up in 2022. You have an Acting National Chairman in the person of Abubakar Gombe. Is there a provision for that? And when do you think you will have a substantive National Chairman? When are you having your Convention?
The Convention is coming up early next year. We are in a convention mood preparing, because we know that our tenure will wind up by the next Convention.
And so, yes, to your question whether there is provision for acting National Chairman, until the NWC takes a position and implements the recommendation of the panel that indicted and recommended suspension of the national chairman, it is accepted in our constitution and law.
The constitution says when there is a vacancy in the position of chairman by whatever reason, the Deputy National Chairman from the zone of the chairman steps in. The SDP Constitution, Article 19-1 to 5 expressly outlined the powers of the NWC to discipline and that led to the suspension of the chairman. The same constitution empowers the deputy to step in. Meaning that there is nothing we have done that is against the constitution of the party and we are very much conscious of the fact that we need to clear all of this as quickly as possible.
After the suspension of Gabam, another Exco chaired by Modibbo, which has some of your NWC members has emerged. Will you agree with me that there are factions in SDP?
There is no faction in the SDP going by the law, INEC’s position, and even the security. Two weeks ago, we got a letter from the police, FCT, when those renegades wrote to the police asking for police protection for a meeting they proposed to hold, signed by one person, who declared himself as national secretary. The police replied the letter, they even quoted the reference letter of INEC, ans stated that going by their findings with INEC and records of INEC, Dr. Olu Agunloye is the National Secretary of the party and so, no other person is recognised.
Where are you in this coalition game? Where is SDP in this issue of coalition, are you merging, are you working with a group, are they coming to you and what have you told them?
SDP has always been the centre of attraction. In 2023, the same story was everywhere that the current President was looking in the direction of the SDP as a fallback option and all of that. In 2023, the same Peter Obi came into this party, he wanted to run here. And several other people looked at us because they see the SDP as a truly national party with structure and history.
When the whole of this coalition started, the operators and drivers of the agenda did a national survey of all the political parties in opposition and SDP came number one in their rating. That it was the best in terms of structure, capacity, name, stability and all of that.
And they were relating with us, but they never did the right thing. They didn’t come to meet the party. They were relating with an individual, the suspended national chairman, and Mallam Nasir el-Rufai.
And so at the point they came to us, they had signed off the party. The suspended national chairman had signed off the party. We said, no, we cannot trade off. We are not transactional.
All of the talk about coalition is about individuals who are embittered, fixated on becoming president at all cost, who wanted and still want to just have tickets of political parties to run as President, not necessarily about Nigeria’s agenda.
So, we shut it down and said no. They wanted nine positions out of a 15-man NWC. They wanted the National Chairman, National Secretary, Legal Adviser, and we said, no, no matter the amount of money. And they were forced to reconsider their position and went to where they went to.
The SDP is open to a true national agenda. We are open to working alliances and relationship but not a coalition that will subdue the party, change the name and logo, and completely takeover the party.
We are open to people coming in to join the party individually, SDP is not going to be subdued by any merger or dissolve into any existing political party.
In 2027, will your party field a candidate or you will throw your weight behind President Bola Tinubu or your 2023 presidential candidate Adewale Adebayo?
In 2022, before we had the Convention, we had six presidential aspirants. In 2019, we had five, Professor Jerry Gana, Donald Duke and all of them. In 2023, we had six. So that gives you an idea that SDP’s ticket is always strongly contested for, and so the same thing will happen in 2026.
Prince Adebayo has not relented since 2023. He’s been everywhere, making strategic interventions and offering solutions. He’s sensitizing, cultivating followership across, even beyond the party.
He is not the only one interested in our ticket. There are other gladiators. It is too early in the day. For us in the SDP, our ticket will be keenly contested for and the best who emerges candidate will certainly be someone who can stand, represent the party well and have a good show in the election.
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