Prince Adewole Adebayo is the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP. He believes in the ideals of the SDP because, he says it has always been his party of choice as an MKO Abiola boy in the early 1990s.

Whereas he said he tried to ensure a merger with another party, he would have loved to associate with, the Peoples Redemption Party, PRP, as also a follower of Mallam Aminu Kano, the move didn’t materialise.

He claims to be a social democrat because he cares about investing in people, adding that government resources must be spent on the left side of the divide: housing, education, health, food supply and infrastructure for the people; and build other things from there on. He insists that SDP aspires to be independent, and the party is in every ward of Nigeria, invoking the legacy of MKO Abiola.

His thoughts are radical and even when asked, as a way of indemnification, whether he would be willing, if called upon to substantiate his many weighty allegations of graft in high places, he gave this response:

“Is it not weighty or weightier that a sovereign country is losing billions of dollars and millions of crude oil barrels to thieves? What can be weightier than that? In Saudi Arabia, you will be shot for stealing one gallon. The President has people everywhere and he’s the minister of petroleum resources by choice, so he ought to know what is going on in that space”.

A lawyer, who has interests and investments in agriculture, pharmaceuticals and broadcasting, Prince Adebayo’s operations and philanthropy cut across many fields and almost all continents of the world.

With what is going on in the country today, what strategies or ideas are you bringing to the table that you would want Nigerians to appreciate you for?

The idea any Commander-in-Chief must have is for the function of that office to be performed properly.

President Buhari would tell you he is performing the function very well. His people always say so?

With due respect, President Buhari is not performing anything! He has given you evidence why he’s not performing it.

One, he said he’s surprised that Kuje Prisons was attacked, even though there were said to be about 42 or 44 security repaorts hinting of a possible attack on that facility. He’s not following intelligence the way he should and he has constituted his security apparatus wrongly. He has brought in people based on nepotism, trying to compensate people. Many people who featured during his campaigns were bidding for the job of National Security Adviser, NSA. You’ve seen the way they’re jumping up and down about security architecture. But if you study the Terrorism Prevention Act, 2011, which is now 2022, you’ll notice that he has gotten it wrong from start.

The security agencies under me will not be fighting one another. The way they are doing their contracting has made Buhari’s security people to become joint stakeholders with Boko Haram, joint stakeholders with bandits, joint stakeholders with kidnappers and other criminals.

This is so because if the criminals make money, they, too, make money. And there are no consequences for failure. And there’s no reward for success. So, in that state of anomie that he has created, the essence of government has been defeated. We are now back to the opposite of what Thomas Hobbs recommended, that the government is supposed to come and prevent a situation where we are having survival of the fittest. So, life now is short, nasty and brutish.

What I will do is to select the very opposite of the people Buhari has selected. There are people out there who know exactly what to do.

I have more than 40 to 50 people that I know for sure, within 90 days, they will put an end to this insecurity. Then, there is no inter-service collaboration because there is too much competition such that one person’s failure is another person’s success and vice versa.

He’s lost control and there is disorder. Our armed forces have the capacity, fluidity, mobility and all the platforms that they can use, if properly led, to stem the tide.

We are talking about a disengaged four-star general of the Nigerian Army, who was also a military head of state; so if it was this easy, why do you think, without prejudice to all you have said, the shape-shifting nature of insecurity continues to, in my view, trounce the knowledge and competence of President Buhari?

First, I’m happy that you’ve referred to this but I do not think Boko Haram or bandits are impressed with the titles of President Buhari.

Let’s examine the records because part of the mistake we made was to assume that if you’re a General, you must know what you’re doing in terms of security. Wars are lost and won with generals on both sides, so, those who lose wars, is it that their side did not have generals? I have the utmost respect for the person of Buhari, but he has no tangible record of success that we can point to now because seven years is enough to prove what was learnt in the armed forces. He’s not aware of so many things.

When I already knew that our crude was being stolen, I’m not so sure he was aware even as Minister of Petroleum Resources. As we are talking now, they are stealing our crude off-shore and at our terminals.

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