The presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, in the 2023 general election, Prince Adewole Adebayo, has said that his counterpart from the Labour Party, Peter Obi, is in some secret serious talks and plans to unseat President Bola Tinubu in 2027.
According to him, Tinubu will have no choice but to return to wherever he came from after the 2027 presidential election.
The renowned international lawyer and media executive said that speculations and rumours being spread on social media concerning one coalition or the other should be ignored, adding that more solid plans were going on underground.
Speaking on Channels Television, Adewole insisted that the 2027 presidential battle is for Nigerians to decide and not about defections and propaganda by politicians of like minds.
He said that what is certain was President Tinubu is not a match with Nigerian people, adding that anyone backed by Nigerian people, himself included, would defeat the incumbent leader.
He said that at the moment, Tinubu has a good trajectory to losing the 2027 presidential election and of going back to wherever he originally came from.
According to Adewole, Nigerians have given Tinubu two years to put his acts together and allowed him to experiment with some things that no government will get away with in the past, adding that with two more years to go, the President’s body language shows he needs more than prayers to succeed.
He said, “What is going on now is going on quietly. The leaders of the parties are meeting. The real people, who have control over their political structures, are meeting. It is not something that we want to discuss on the pages of newspapers, but everybody has their own style of operation.
“What we understand, and which is commonsensical political science, is that there must be one grand leader, a challenger against President Tinubu in 2027.
“That person who is the candidate must carry along a large swatch of the disadvantaged and unhappy Nigerians, politicians have many ideas about how to arrive there. The SDP is talking to people outside our party, and I think we are making a lot of progress.
“What is being reported about the personal travels of different people is not what is going on. What is going on is discussion along ideology, methodology and accommodation, and when that time is right, what we are doing must be a surprise to the government in power. There is a solid plan to unseat President Tinubu.
“But it’s not the one about a series of collateral pictures of courtesy calls. It’s underground. A lot of Nigerians are not aware.
“It’s not that if you meet somebody at the airport, you take a photo together and say, ‘yes, coalition’ that is not it. Its infantile.
“It is something that is deep, because in addition to having a genuine grounds on behalf of Nigerian people against the non performing government APC, even we who are in the position have differences, and we must work out those differences first before we can go and challenge the person who is now there.
“But if we don’t work out our differences first, clearly, we’ll later discover in the middle of the subway that we are incongruous.
“They [the APC] should be worried first about not serving Nigerians well. They should be. They shouldn’t be too worried about losing the election. They should be worried about disappointing the people.”;;
Asked if Peter Obi is part of this conversation that they are having, he added, “I don’t think he wants anybody to be talking about what he’s doing, because he appears to have more discipline than other people.
“So you don’t see him. He goes away. Peter Obi goes quietly. He has meetings with people he doesn’t expose to the media. He’s a highly disciplined person. He knows what he’s doing. He has his own plan. I’m working with anybody who loves Nigeria.”;;
Asked if he will be able to step down for Peter Obi, for the interest of Nigeria, Adewole added, “that will come later, but for what I see, I like what he’s doing, he hasn’t said he doesn’t like what I’m doing. He’s serious minded. He is having meaningful discussion, quiet discussion, honorable discussion, not that I have a discussion with you, and I go to tea on Tiktok, as I put it in there.”;;
