Adewole Adebayo: Six-Year Term Debate A Distraction From Nigeria’s Real Problems

Adewole Adebayo: Six-Year Term Debate A Distraction From Nigeria’s Real Problems

SDP’s Adewole Adebayo discusses the state of the nation, Nigeria’s political landscape, governance, and the race to the 2027 general elections.

The presidential candidate for the Social Democratic Party, (SDP), Prince Adewole Adebayo, has dismissed proposals for a single six-year presidential term as a distraction from the country’s more pressing challenges, insisting that electoral integrity and effective governance should be Nigeria’s primary focus.

Speaking in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Wednesday,, Adebayo argued that the real issue confronting Nigeria is not the length of time elected officials spend in office, but whether leaders emerge through free, fair, and credible elections that truly reflect the will of the people.

Recall that Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele recently disclosed plans to sponsor a bill seeking to introduce a single six-year tenure for presidents and governors, arguing that the proposal would enable elected officials to focus more on governance rather than re-election campaigns.

Adebayo said: “It’s a distraction. These are all idle talks. A six-year term, a four-year term—that’s not the problem. The problem is that you have to have a system that works. You have to have a political system where the voter decides the winner, where nobody watches INEC as if you are watching a secret society, and where political parties raise ideas and raise new people. So, my focus, as we are heading towards the future, is that we must, once and for all, kill the demon of rigged elections. We must, once and for all, allow the voter to vote. So, the issue of how long you stay in power and all of that is irrelevant; it’s what you do when you get there.

“I think the present system of four years—and if you are good enough, you go for another four years—is good enough if the people who are actually going to the government are going there only by winning a free, fair, and credible election. We should focus on that now,” he insisted.

Speaking on reports of parallel presidential candidates within the SDP, Adebayo dismissed the development as a familiar occurrence in party politics, insisting that the party remains united behind a single candidate.

“We are not bothered by that; it’s the normal staple. So, I think the burden is on INEC to try not to waste its time on that and to follow the law,” he maintained.

Adebayo also called for issue-based politics, urging political parties to compete on ideas and policy alternatives rather than internal disputes and identity-based considerations.

“What we can have is a set of political parties competing on a set of ideas, and the media moderating for all of us so that we can have equal hearing. Then, Nigerians can now decide to lay their bed the way they want to lay on it when the time comes.”

Reflecting on the 2023 presidential election, he maintained that many voters were distracted by debates surrounding the Muslim-Muslim ticket and other political controversies instead of scrutinising policy proposals. According to him, some of the economic and governance challenges currently facing the country stem from policies that were clearly outlined before the election but did not receive sufficient public attention.

“Because the agenda we are facing now—the consequences we are facing—were the agenda that President Tinubu presented last time, and people were focusing on a Muslim-Muslim ticket and other things that are not important. And they didn’t focus on those damaging proposals which we were telling them would leave you in a serious quagmire. And that has come to pass now, unfortunately,” he bemoaned.

He further argued that the country’s current electoral system does not always reflect the true will of the people, making it difficult to accurately measure the popularity of political parties and candidates.

“The thing that is bringing us back is the expectation that we will have free, fair, and credible elections, where people don’t buy votes, they don’t rig votes, and that at that time, you will know the relative strength of all political parties, where they are. The system we are running now does not give an honest person an ability to swear by any standard that the results you are getting represent the will of the people,” he explained.

According to him, growing public dissatisfaction with the status quo has increased the demand for alternative political platforms, with the SDP’s positions on security, the economy, infrastructure, welfare and democratic governance resonating with many Nigerians across the country.

“The demand for alternatives is rising every day. The need for alternatives is rising every day. The necessity for alternatives is rising every day. There is no aspect of our national life where the ideas that the SDP is promoting do not attract Nigerians. Our ideas on security, our idea on the economy, our idea on infrastructure, our idea on welfare, our idea on the state of democracy and ethics in governance—those are the ideas that Nigerians are interested in. And the SDP happens to be a party that is popular with Nigerian people. It’s because of the SDP that we have this June 12 Democracy Day, and we have grassroots support,” he said.

Addressing the fuel subsidy debate, Adebayo said its removal was a mistake, arguing that the real problem is the government’s failure to develop Nigeria’s domestic refining capacity and effectively manage the petroleum sector.

“The removal of the subsidy was a big mistake. But President Tinubu has gone on to now make even bigger mistakes over time. For three reasons: One, there was no subsidy to start with. We said that there was no subsidy. What they were doing by way of removal of subsidy was price adjustment for products that they did not produce. And the ability to produce those products rested in taking care of the four refineries that we have—two in Port Harcourt, one in Warri, and one in Kaduna. And the amount of money we were spending on turn-around maintenance was not accounted for,” he argued.

Adebayo outlined what he described as a three-step alternative to the current fuel subsidy policy, beginning with restoring Nigeria’s refineries in the short to medium term, insisting that they are capable of functioning if properly managed.

“So, what we had proposed was that we’ll have a three-step approach: We will make sure that the refineries work in the medium term because we’ve spent enough money. And many of them will work if the government wants them to work.

“That we will take our people—especially the vulnerable people, the low-income people, the energy-poor people—away from the need for petrol. Because when you have multimodal transportation, which you can get within six months, and workers use their employment card to take transport to work, they will not be forced to bother too much about the price of petrol.