Obi’s Men Lobbying SDP, Seven Aspirants Jostling For Our Ticket – Agunloye
With Nigeria’s 2027 presidential election about two years away, political permutations and combinations have begun with actors shopping for special purpose vehicles among the 19 registered political parties in the country to realise their dream to occupy the Aso Rock, the nation’s seat of power in the political capital city of Abuja. Fresh political alignments have been activated in many circles with the Social Democratic Party (SDP) recording seven presidential aspirants already, according to the party’s National Secretary, Olu Agunloye. “We have eight presidential aspirants; it could be 10. Seven of them are on our platform,” the ex-steel minister said on Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, a socio-political programme aired on Channels Television. Though he did not mention the names of the aspirants, he said the SDP can’t afford to lose any of the interested politicians to other parties. Agunloye said loyalists of the 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, have also approached the SDP to prepare the ground for the ex-Anambra governor who is yet to officially declare his intention to join the party. The SDP chieftain said, “Obi’s people came to us to say if Obi comes, would you take him? Of course, we told them: ‘Yes’. I was in that meeting. Some of them are with us saying that they are preparing the ground but you have to join SDP. You cannot be in the Labour Party and be telling us Obi is coming without joining us otherwise we can’t open our doors for you. “But Obi may have no plan to come or he may want to come. People do all of this but where we stand is that we must do well in our platform.” Is SDP The New Bride? Ahead of the 2027 polls, talks about an inter-party alliance reached a climax on Thursday, March 20, 2025, when opposition arrowhead Atiku Abubakar, alongside Obi, ex-Kaduna governor Nasir El-Rufai, amongst others, announced a coalition to oust incumbent Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) whose administration has been accused of mismanaging the economy, with all-time high inflation and unprecedented cost of living. The coalition is banking on the numerical strength of the votes recorded by Atiku and Obi in the last poll. In 2023, Atiku of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party’s Obi came second and third respectively with combined votes of over 12 million, more than four million above the total votes recorded by Tinubu who was declared the winner by electoral umpire INEC. With a litany of court cases arising from intra-party squabbles and protracted leadership crises rocking the PDP and the LP, as well as alleged maltreatment of some APC members, politicians in the three parties seem to have made the SDP a darling. SDP’s national secretary Agunloye said the party’s “gates are open. So, if all of them wants to come, we will take them”. But he quickly added that the party won’t allow the newcomers to displace the landlords but would find a way to synergise the two groups and explore their collective strengths for the interest of the party in the next poll. He said, “We will not allow people to come and sweep the people out from the place. We must synergise; we must maximise the opportunities because these are people with a lot of experience. “Whatever anybody wants to say about El-Rufai, you cannot take his experience away, you cannot take his expertise away, you cannot take his energy away. And he has money because anybody who is able to win elections has money – whether he is able to raise it or has it from inheritance. So, it is a plus that he joins the party but we must find a way to work together with him.” He boasted that the party has a presence in all the 774 local government areas in Nigeria and “those who want to come must follow the pattern that we have”. Which Zone Gets SDP’s Ticket? On whether former vice president Atiku plans to join the SDP from the PDP, Agunloye said, “I’ve been hearing that Atiku is coming. Atiku and I are friends since the time he was vice president. He still spoke to me about one week or less ago; he didn’t say: ‘I am coming’.” He said El-Rufai’s defection from the APC to the SDP boosted the party’s membership. “I know that (Hamza) Al-Mustapha has come because he came to the office to collect our membership card. El-Rufai has come and a couple of his former commissioners, and associates. “Several other people called and said they don’t know El-Rufai but because he came, they want to come. I am the secretary of the party. If your name is not on our book, you have come but you have not entered,” he said. He said the SDP must be organised and settle all the issues that would make the party’s efforts to be counterproductive in the next election. Agunloye said the presidential slot of the SDP for 2027 is a delicate one that needs to be handled with tact because of the number of interests. “Just imagine Peter Obi, Atiku, El-Rufai, (Attahiru) Bafarawa come on the same platform, you have to find a balance,” he said. On whether the SDP would zone its 2027 presidential ticket to the southern or northern region, the official said the matter would be deliberated by the party’s organ when it is time. “We need to strengthen all the structures in SDP. We need to preserve the integrity of the SDP. We need to have a situation where everybody has his responsibility. Because they have come, we are not going to merge but we must be honest. It is only when we deal honestly that Peter Obi can sit down, Adewole (Adebayo) can sit down, Atiku can sit down,” he said.
Admin | 2025-03-21 16:31:02