Adewole Adebayo, presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), says four years is enough for a “determined” leader to do right by the citizens.
Adebayo spoke on Tuesday in Abuja while unveiling the SDP’s 2027–2031 policy document, titled “Farewell to Poverty and Insecurity”.
He described the document as the party’s blueprint for tackling Nigeria’s security, economic and infrastructure challenges.
The SDP candidate cited the administration of Lateef Jakande, former governor of Lagos, as an example of what a focused government can achieve within four years.
“When Jakande got to Lagos, three sets of students had to use one classroom. In Lagos, if you tried to drive your car on Monday, you could not drive it on Tuesday because of congestion,” Adebayo said.
“People were piling on top of each other, living in Ebute Metta and all those places. Jakande did housing, education and everything, including transportation and metro line planning, in four years.
“Four years is enough for a determined leader to help his people. Forty years is not enough for thieves to milk you dry.”
Adebayo said the SDP policy document focuses on human development, citizens’ dignity and affordable infrastructure that can be financed within the country’s income.
He said the plan would increase electricity generation to 75,000 megawatts and establish four functioning public refineries among other deliverables in the downstream sector.
“This plan will give you four functioning public refineries, will give you 36 modular refineries, and will allow private investors to put their refineries in Nigeria and export their own overseas,” he said.
The SDP presidential candidate also addressed the ongoing debate over petrol subsidy, saying Nigerians should not be made to buy the commodity at international prices without getting income commensurate with global standards.
“No Nigerian should be living in Nigeria, buying petrol at an international price without getting the salary of the international labour,” he said.
“That’s why we calculated it and said N200 at current rates is the price at which you can sell petrol, and you will not push the people into poverty.”
Adebayo blamed the naira’s depreciation on alleged mismanagement and theft of national revenue.
“What is happening is that even if you tell the people in government to sell petrol at N3,000, they will still declare a loss because they cannot keep the value of the currency,” he said.
“And the currency is depreciating because, first, the money we make from our national income- petrol, solid minerals, taxes- is being stolen in broad daylight.
“They just collude with the criminals; they have a CBN to print money. At the end of the day, we have empty paper.”
The SDP presidential candidate will be making a second appearance on the ballot in 2027 after contesting the presidency in 2023 under the same party.
He will be up against President Bola Tinubu, who is seeking re-election; Peter Obi, the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) candidate; and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar of the African Democratic Congress (ADC).