Prince Adebayo Adewale, the Social Democratic Party’s (SDP) presidential candidate, has accused Nigerian youths of raising money to march and tweet in support of specific presidential candidates ahead of the upcoming 2023 election, Njenje Media News reports.
He suggested that Nigerians use their Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) to strike back on previous governments for their crimes and also advised Nigerians not to vote for politicians who can’t fix insecurity, poverty, and many challenges facing the country.
Adebayo disclosed this at a book launch in Abuja on Tuesday, saying Nigeria’s past heroes are purveyors of injustices.
He said the emergence of a new political movement would not guarantee any change if Nigerians can’t fix themselves first and revealed that Nigerian youths usually gravitate to politicians that give them money.
According to him, “Nigerians are the ones to fix Nigeria, but the people who have damaged Nigeria are the same people vying to fix Nigeria. The first thing is to fix ourselves.
“The reason we are having an election next year is not that we have learned any lesson but because it is time for an election. If we use the same matrix we have been using in previous elections, we will continue to have the same result.”
“People are saying, well Muhammadu Buhari is a disaster, but President Goodluck Jonathan was a saint. Umaru Yar’adua was sent by God and before then Olusegun Obasanjo was a perfect Man. I don’t agree to any of these statements.”
He continued by saying “And as we sing in our national anthem, the labours of our heroes past shall not be in vain, what about the injustices of our heroes past?”
“So something went wrong with the first republic that is why we had the military intervention, something went wrong with the Army that why we had the peoples revolt against it, something went wrong PDP then we had the APC”
“What I will say to Nigerians is what I will say to my mechanic, do you understand what is wrong with this car? If you can’t fix my car, please don’t damage it further. Everything is wrong with the other person, nothing is wrong with us. We want justice, but we are not ready to sacrifice something in return.”
“If we want to fix Nigeria, we need to make up our minds; I have gone round the country, I have seen some people who want to fix the country, some who want to fix themselves in positions. I have seen people who want to fix the country but don’t want certain things to be touched because those things they like shouldn’t be fixed. I have met people who want to fix Nigeria but refuse to agree that they are part of the problem”
“Some believe they are innocent. Many of the innocent people I see in politics today, are youths and women. Every youth in Nigeria is angry with the country, but in reality everybody is part of the problem.”
He disclosed that if elected, he would address the problem of insecurity, poverty many challenges facing the country. He explained that he is planning to attract talent into governance while decrying the modernization of our political process.
“If you don’t have the money, you can’t get the vote. The youths today, for the past 22 years, there is nobody that will say the political space is not conducive to call for change but the youth gravitate towards politicians that give them money. The majority of the youth-organized gathering programmes rely on the money provided by politicians. Youths are paid money to tweet, march on the streets, as influencers, yet they want change. The youths in Canada work and give money to Politicians but in Nigeria, politicians give them money.”