Nigeria@65: We started accidentally as a trade zone – Adebayo

Leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Prince Adewole Adebayo has expressed sadness over the level of disunity in Nigeria after 65 years of independence, saying that at the outset, there was no great philosopher or great thinker who could have united the people as it was done in other climes.

“If you study the history of some kingdoms, some countries and some societies, it will be indigenous warring tribes or groups, disunited by many factors including politics, but united by culture. And a great leader rises among them and says, let me unite my people. That’s not the history of Nigeria. Nigeria started accidentally; there are no great philosophers or great thinkers within our population who said, oh, let us all come together. Let me unite people,” he said.
He attributed the disunity and the array of problems confronting Nigeria 65 years after independence to its evolution, saying, “So, Nigeria started merely as a trade zone, just like you have a free trade zone or export processing zone; it’s a zone. It is like the arbitrariness with which they created areas for discos. We created Lagos disco, Ibadan disco, Benin disco, Yola disco and others.
“So that’s how Nigeria was to the Royal Niger Company. It was just a trade zone. Let’s have this trade zone and those trade zones are different kingdoms and communities and all of that. And somehow for the efficiency of the business, they decided to hand it over back to the British government and run it as a protectorate and part of it as a colony.
“And then after a while, they ran it as protectorates, you know, next to each other. In 1914, they said let’s amalgamate together. So, but 46 years later, the people who put it together just said, we’ve had enough of it, let’s hand it over to the locals now. And young people who had never run anything before, but who were united by the philosophy that these are indigenous people, right from Herbert Macaulay in Lagos, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ahmed Bello and others took charge.”

He expressed hope that the SDP, which he described as an independent party with ideals different from other parties, was ready to take Nigeria out of the woods.
He said it is very rare to find a true SDP person, who will have interest in the APC or the PDP because the idea of what they are doing is totally opposite to what the SDP is preaching.
On how the party is preparing for the 2027 contest, he informed that the dialogue to strengthen the party continues among members because there are elements who would work against the party’s interest. “When I ran for president, there were elements that worked against us in the party. There were party agents who would not show up and state chairmen who collected our agent card and then went and gave it to another political party. “I went to Kwara and discovered that from our research sheets, we scored 122,000 votes, but they recorded only 22,000 for us and the people who were working with us; who were supposed to protest and do everything, thought that they could have a relationship with the ruling party and then they messed that up. “So, we’re changing those leaderships, we’re bringing new people in.
“So it takes a while to get a political party, whose majority of members will be people that are selfless, patriotic and in politics because they want nothing other than a better country. That’s what we are building in the SDP,” he said.

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