The Social Democratic Party, SDP, presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections, Adewole Adebayo, has expressed his willingness to step down his presidential ambition in the 2027 elections for a better politician to emerge as the flag bearer of his party.
Adebayo made this statement on the Sunday edition of Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, a socio-political programme aired on Channels Television.
“Everybody knows that I have an aspiration. I’m working on it but God is the author of tomorrow; we don’t even know who is going to be around in 2027.
“It is my prayer to God that if there is a person who God thinks is better than me to fix the problem of Nigeria, my ambition should not stop that person because we want a country that works. That is the kind of thing we are working on at this time,” Adebayo said.
According to him, the SDP would give Nigerians a candidate that all citizens would be proud of and be ready to give a chance to unseat President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the next presidential election.
He further stated that the SDP won’t divide Nigerians along the delicate lines of religion and ethnicity.
“What used to be an easy discussion – with religion and ethnicity – has become explosive now. So, we will not use the SDP forum to try to bifurcate our people into different zones.
“What we are looking for now is a system where when we make a choice in the SDP, there will be resounding joy outside the SDP and Nigerians will say: ‘Okay, finally, this platform has given the country a chance’,” he added.
Ahead of the 2027 polls, talks about an inter-party alliance reached a climax on Thursday, March 20, 2025, when opposition arrowhead, Atiku Abubakar, alongside former Anambra governor Peter Obi, ex-Kaduna governor Nasir El-Rufai, among others, announced a coalition to oust incumbent Tinubu whose administration has been accused of mismanaging the economy, with all-time high inflation and unprecedented cost of living.
The coalition is banking on the numerical strength of the votes recorded by Atiku and Obi in the last poll.
In 2023, Atiku of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party’s Obi came second and third respectively with combined votes of over 12 million, more than four million above the total votes recorded by Tinubu who was declared the winner by electoral umpire INEC.
With a litany of court cases arising from intra-party squabbles and protracted leadership crises rocking the PDP and the LP, as well as alleged maltreatment of some APC members, politicians in the three parties seem to have made the SDP a darling.
Already, El-Rufai and some of his foot soldiers have joined the SDP. There have been talks about Atiku and Obi reportedly making moves to join the SDP but both politicians have not made such a decision known officially.
