Factional National Chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Chief Supo Shonibare, speaks with DEBORAH ONYOFUFEKE, on perspectives and developing issues ahead of the 2023 general elections, and other sundry matters

Apart from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which has thrown its presidential ticket open, many other parties including the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) are still silent on the matter, what is the position of SDP on this?

For us in the SDP, there is a court case subsisting where there is an order that the status quo needs to be maintained and we hope that very soon the position of the leadership of SDP will be clear. I have been leading the elected members of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of SDP since February 2019, unfortunately, the COVID-19 challenge took about 18 months out of the life of that court case. The court case will resolve our issues, but that aside, we have zoned the presidency to the South and for me, I don’t think it should be the South-West that should produce the next president of this country. I will be guided by whatever the National Executive Committee of my party directs and I hope that they will be guided by their conscience in determining where the next President should come from because we have accepted the concept of federal character for inclusiveness. The issue of the presidency being zoned to the South is for inclusiveness. It is to ensure that it is not just one section of the country that should be producing the presidents, particularly in a country that is comprised of various ethnic nationalities. Now, if you accept that premise, you look at the North, look at the South, then it should be very difficult to conclude that the South is accepted to our three zones. The logical conclusion of that too, going along with that trajectory, is that if you are choosing between those three zones, you should look at the zone that has not had the opportunity within this Republic. It is really within this Republic that we have been conscious about using zoning to encourage inclusiveness. In the First and Second Republics, that was not an issue, during the Third Republic, that wasn’t an issue, but in this Fourth Republic, we are tired of looking at the zoning as a means of encouraging nation-building and as a means of enabling inclusiveness so in that regard. Our conscience should guide us if we want to champion fairness and equity, and if we say we are rotating, if we say we want inclusiveness, then surely, it will have to be the zone that has not been allowed to produce our President and I think the only zone that has not been given that opportunity is the South-East. So, that would be my position, my take.

But we have situations where aspirants have emerged from all zones of the country, what is your reaction to this?

I will implore those that show interest to be statesmen and not look at ambition. In rising to the challenge of being statesmen, we look at what can be done in the polity that will enable stability and inclusiveness in nation-building. Certainly, you can’t say that you are encouraging inclusiveness if you insist that it has to be your zone that continues to produce the President of this country, anyone who is conscious of a stable polity cannot pursue that kind of policy. Unless those that are pursuing that kind of policy are prepared to accept the notion that we should dispense the federal character. For a lot of us, we have thought that the issue of federal character should limit us to having the best people for political positions. So, if they are insisting that it is a must that they produce the President, then they have no right to insist on federal character. Maybe we should dispense the thought of the federal character. I know that whatever position that there is, whatever one has to vie for, we look at the best person for a particular position, but you can’t say that you want federal character which only becomes a tool for inclusiveness and at the same time when we say rotation, we say no, the rotation should not be, it is not in the Constitution, is the issue of fairness a function of what is written in the Constitution or what you think is fair? So, we are in a state of drifting into anarchy. There are several parts of the country where we have non-state militia controlling territories and in that situation, it is not a situation that is limited to any zone, there’s the insurgency in the North, why is there insurgency in the North? If the North was a stable polity, there will be no insurgency and it is obvious that the insurgency in the North, the government has not been able to control it for several years. So, it’s a bit of a problem for me to see those who need a united nation. Even for them to be able to overcome the insurgency that has almost taken over most of the North, to be insisting on what is blatantly unfair, as a tool for nation-building, doesn’t make sense. You are under fire in your backyard and instead of you to adopt policies that can bring about a more united country, even when in your backyard, you cannot guarantee stability. Instead of you appeasing all the parts of the country so that even you can be able to mold something nearer, a more stable polity in your backyard, you are playing god.

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A lot of aspirants, especially in the ruling party, have said they would build on the legacies of the present administration, in your assessment, what legacy would the present administration be leaving behind when they exit in May 2023?

Those saying that must wake up to the fact that this government has failed Nigerians in even meeting the basic function of a government, which is the security of life and property. The government has not been able to do that. Our economic situation has deteriorated and there is an infrastructural deficit. There are no achievements that one can point to that they have done that should be commended. It is very difficult to see what they are building on. One would have thought that they would have offered the public a new way of correcting what they see as were the inadequacies of the administration and tell us that they will do things differently, but if you are saying you are going to build upon the insecurity, you want to build on the economic incompetence, it means you want to continue to be printing money because that is what is happening. Our foreign exchange rate has continued to deteriorate. So, there’s no aspect in the necessary tools of running a government that one can commend for having achieved any success in the past seven years. I can’t think of any particular achievement that one can say that this administration has elevated beyond the previous administrations. The rail network that they say they have put in place is not a modern network system, and in most areas, it is not functioning.

There is the thinking that after the primaries of the ruling party, there will be a surge into SDP, how prepared is the party to receive a surge from other political parties at this critical time?

The SDP national executives had a press conference a week ago in which we did say that once we are willing to accommodate other people coming from other political parties, we do not want to clone either the PDP or the APC in SDP. The SDP is an ideological political vehicle, that intends to evolve a fairer, greater society. Our economic policies are consistent without objective, and apart from the economic and political vehicle of restructuring, in all the other aspects of policies that we think will be the panacea to both economic and security challenges. We also think that the integrity of those we adopt as our flag bearers must be such that is impeccable. We will be looking at the personality of those who come to join us, especially those who have occupied political offices. We would be looking at what they have done, and whether they have displayed the notion of selfless governance. We will not accept individuals who have been accused of financial mismanagement, we will not accept aspirants who have a pending case in court relating to financial mismanagement, and we will not accept aspirants who have been convicted for public mismanagement of funds. So these will be the issues that we will look at. We will look at the records of the people that are coming, in terms of those whom we think can be flag bearers of our party because, after all these processes, those who become representatives at the national level of the party become secondary. They are the primary flag bearers of the party as they determine the policies, they are the ones who will implement the policies. Anyone that the court has convicted won’t have space in SDP.

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How does the SDP plan to make an impact in the 2023 elections taking into cognisance that it did not make inroads in the last elections?

That’s why we are anxious that the court should resolve this problem of SDP, in one way or the other, as quickly as possible. The experience we had like six months ago when characters like Dr Olu Agunloye or Alhaji Shehu Gabam started claiming the national leadership positions, is the root of this matter. When they came to join us in 2018, they were not even at the national level. The challenge we had at that time was that those who left PDP still had an axe to grind with those whom they left behind in PDP. They came to SDP to make a point by ensuring that SDP was just going to be a political party aligning with APC. A week before the presidential election, after SDP had decided that we are going to support a candidate from the opposition party, without a National Executive Committee meeting, we just saw them on television saying that they were declaring to support the APC presidential candidate. And they have been doing that in several states by-elections since 2019. They have been discouraging those who would have been our best flag bearers in several states to make SDP ineffective. They are making congresses difficult for those whom they knew could win a particular area and elected to push weaker candidates forward. That was one of the reasons SDP didn’t do well as they ought to have done in the 2019 elections. Alhaji Shehu Gabam was acting as an appointed chairman which a lot of us objected to because the question was very clear that you have to emerge from the convention. You cannot be appointed to the national executive. He was appointed illegally and his mission was just to make SDP ineffectual and we have heard that that might happen again. That is why we are leaning on the legal interpretation of our Constitution and for the court to decide the legitimacy of the party so that the party can truly be a party that represents its candidates. That is what one hopes will happen.

What will be your warning or note of caution to the electorate, especially those who sell their votes, ahead of the 2023 election?

Well, I will tell Nigerians that if they are offered the money they should see whatever they are being offered as their money, as what they are entitled to because it is public funds they are being offered. A lot of people who don’t have money to throw around have come into massive sums that they are willing to filter away from our collective wealth. So, they should take the money they are entitled to, but vote according to their conscience.