The 2023 presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Prince Adewale Adebayo, has urged Nigerians to stop recycling old politicians if the country is to make meaningful progress.

Speaking on Arise TV PrimeTime, monitored by The Guardian, Adebayo argued that the political elite remain the root cause of Nigeria’s challenges. According to him, the first step towards national renewal is embracing fresh leaders with new ideas.

“You need to listen to new ideas and new politicians,” he said. “A country with a 70 per cent poverty rate, no infrastructure, and weak institutions cannot afford to be conservative. You have nothing to lose—what you need is new leadership to renew yourself.”

He lamented that Nigeria’s political class is dominated by a tiny fraction of the population.

“Politicians are less than two per cent of the country. It’s not about what they are doing; it’s about what the 98 per cent decide to tolerate,” he stressed.

Adebayo further argued that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has plunged Nigeria into deeper economic woes, just as the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) did during its 16 years in power.

“The results of the APC in the last decade resemble the poor results of the PDP years. If this must change, we need to change the political tendencies in power. Merely switching parties without changing ideology is only a matter of nomenclature,” he warned.

On former Kaduna State governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai’s recent criticism of the APC-led Federal Government as “failed, clannish and visionless,” Adebayo said El-Rufai merely echoed what he had been saying since 2022.
He welcomed El-Rufai to the “club of those who have realised the damage APC has done to Nigeria.”