The presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 2023 general election, Prince Adewole Adebayo, has advised against the proposed nationwide protest over the state of the nation slated for August 1, urging the promoters to rather vote wisely during the next general election.
 
Adebayo, who accused the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led Federal Government of implementing the economic policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, recalled that President Tinubu, former president Muhammadu Buhari and others protested against the same policies during the Goodluck Jonathan administration.
 
He expressed his reservations on the proposed protest, saying it would be “similar to the sheer political gimmicks of Buhari, Tinubu, etc, protesting against Jonathan for the same policies that they are now pursuing even with less humanity.”
 
His words: “I opposed the Buhari-Tinubu farce that time, and I oppose the same thing now. As Buhari and Tinubu and others were opposing Jonathan in 2014, they too were lobbying the same IMF, World Bank etc for political support based on the same policies Jonathan was already implementing against his own wish, just to please the same IMF. 

As SDP presidential candidate, it’s common knowledge that I opposed subsidy removal, floating of the naira and many of the policies adopted by Tinubu, Atiku and Obi. Instead, I called for the full implementation of Chapter 2 of the Constitution – Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy.”
 
According to him, his reservation about the protests was hinged on the fact that elections have consequences and the winner must use his mandate, adding: “Four-year tenure is sacred if we must avoid chaos. Protests have no ideological basis for the protest sponsors follow the same neoliberal policies and you must vote wisely next time.”
 
He said African youths must prioritise ideological politics and “listen to what politicians say, have said; do and have done; instead of fanning up after them as celebrities.”
 
Adebayo added: “A protest is already a protest if you voice out disagreement in any lawful forum or media. Once you organise a mass protest to challenge pure policy measures and their natural fallouts, you are doing politics, and the other side can originate counter protests. In the case of Nigeria and Kenya, you won’t achieve anything substantial because the major political forces on both sides of the protests agree on neoliberal economic policies whose inevitable consequences are what they are protesting against.  It is more sustainable to organise alternative policies to use to bring other ideological politics into power and change bad policies of the neoliberal economic policies whose inevitable consequences are what they are protesting against.”