Prince Adewole Adebayo is a presidential hopeful on the platform of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). In this interview, he speaks on the need for a paradigm shift in the leadership structure of Nigeria, the absence of rule of law, the 2023 general elections, and his plans to fix the country if elected as president, among others. WALE ELEGBEDE reports
The party you are using does not control even a state in Nigeria. How are you sure that N35m investment in this project isn’t a waste?
I understand that N35m cannot make you a president. Our investment is in the people who share our belief for a better Nigeria.
More than thousands of people, young and old, are all over the country, pasting posters and talking to people. So, N35m is not the investment. The investment is in the belief the people have. The rest is in the hands of the voters. The way our republic is fashioned is that you come out in public to state your belief, you don’t weigh on which party you should join ?
No, you go out and say we have a new perspective on the problem of the country. We are creating a platform that we can present to the people. It is now left for the people to see that the platform is credible.
If you are going to vote, there is no law that says you cannot vote for a party that is new. In a state like Ekiti, for example, SDP is the leading party there. So, Nigerians have to open their minds to the fact that they must allow for fresh ideas and perspectives in our governance system and we must see whether this person can actually run a government.
One of the ways you can know if a person can run the government is that you allow them to run a party and run a campaign. So, watch us as we run our campaign, we have a nine months period to make our case to the public. So, by Christmas time, by January, you will now know whether we have been able to explain to you why you can put your faith in our offer, because what we are trying to tell you is that there are alternatives.
What gives you hope that you are going to win. Isn’t there any thought that you could lose?
In the first instance, we have problems that are human problems. There are no natural problems. There are some countries whose problems are natural, not human cause. I lived in California for many years. In Nigeria, there is no natural problem. Now, in economics, the whole idea of economics with all the books written on economics, is based on the principle of scarcity.
That is an environment of scarce resources. You have to make economic choices in Nigeria. No scarcity. Every developmental resource that we need is in abundance. There is no scarcity of human beings. There are some countries that want to develop, but they have to import labor. We don’t have to. They have to import food. We don’t have to . They have to import water.
We don’t have to. The whole of the geopolitics of Europe is that they have to import gas. That’s why everybody’s looking toward Russia and Ukraine. We don’t have any of this. So, it goes down to one thing we have a leadership problem. Now, if you address that leadership problem, then, you have solved all our problems. Now, what do you do about leadership?
To change the leadership, you have to expand the leadership pool. You can’t have 30 people who for 60 years have to choose themselves to become the leader of the country and when you are done and people have forgotten your errors, they wait for some years and bring you back again.
So, we said, no, what you can do if you want to change the country and you know that leadership is the problem, then you need to put more people into the leadership pool. How do you put them in the leadership pool?
You put them into politics. You test them out and their understanding of the issues in the country? And they can start to providing solutions to them. Look at their lives if they live up to 40 years. You look at where they worked, were they good workers? When they went into business, were they ethical? When they went into public service, were they efficient and patriotic?
Then you test them on whether they understand the issues at stake today. If you put all that together, then you can now choose them as a leader because you have nothing to lose. You have been choosing from the same pool.
There’s no head of state that can honestly say I have not sent something by way of advice, but it’s not that they don’t know what is right. The issue is that what is right has a price. That price requires selflessness, not the traditional way we presently operate.
You are a lawyer and a businessman and the founder of Kaftan TV, among other business interests. How true is it that one needs some experience in governance before joining politics?
Let me confess in public that I do not have any experience in bad governance. So I have not been part of those who have been misgoverning the country. So, that lack of experience in doing bad things, I admit, I don’t have. However, when you want to take a decision in the public sector, the only difference is that the money doesn’t belong to you.
It belongs to the people. Everything you do in the managerial field both private sector or public sector, they are the same. If I am managing this station, as a private station, it is the same principle as that of a public station, the only difference is that profit interest or motive is downplayed but if I need to provide electricity, I need to provide it. It doesn’t matter if I am in government or outside. Leadership in public service is not about forming an alliance where, for example, we have this GSM principle Governor. Senator. Minister.
So if you are a failed minister, you are in charge of housing. People don’t have housing. You cannot come to say, I was a minister. I have experience. No, you can only say you had an opportunity to serve and you failed. If you are a governor, and you spent eight years, and bankrupted the state, you cannot say you have experience in managing a state.
No, you will say, I was given an opportunity to manage the state, I mismanaged it. You can only be good at it if you have been good at it. If you have to give him more opportunities than me, does it mean that you are better than my experience? I have represented and advised the government. I have consulted for governments, Nigeria, and overseas. Let me say what can happen to you if you have no government experience, you come to an environment, and you do not know how decisions are made. You do not know the facts on the ground.
That is what may likely happen to you. That’s not my case. If you ask me when it comes to every critical aspect in terms of security, it will surprise you to know that I know more about the strength of the military and the challenges they face than the CIC who is in charge of them but who doesn’t listen to them.
So, there isn’t anything in government that is not about you. First, master the issues, have the facts and surround yourself with competent people. These kinds of people are available but the only problem is that they don’t have money to give the delegates.
What gives you hope that you are going to win even though you paid N35m nomination form and how much of impact have you brought to your community?
N35 million is a lot of money because I know many people are hurting in this country. But N35m is not up to what I pay every month for scholarships for indigent students. So it’s not a problem every month. I have employees who work for me. I have over a thousand employees who work for me. So N35m, yes, I don’t disrespect it, is a lot of money, but it’s not money that I will do a sign of the cross before I spend.
You don’t need supporters to come up with the money. You actually paid for that out of your pocket.
No, no, no, not at all. I paid for that from my pocket and I paid for so many other things out of my pocket. If you look at the taxes, every year in my state, I get the tax payer of the year award.
And the governor of my state is of APC, he’s not from my party, but every year, including this year I got the taxpayer of the year and the NYSC, which is owned by APC led government, gives me employer of the year. So you can accuse me of not having been advertising myself, but it’s not my job to advise myself. It is the job of the journalists to look for developers of community?
If a person is hiring over 1000 workers for the past 15 years, it is the job of the journalists to find the person. If I practice law up to the Supreme Court of Nigeria, I have practiced law in the Supreme Court of the United States, I practiced in New York, I practiced law in California, I practiced all over the world, and I am one of the rated arbitrators.
I have been a fellow of arbitrators since I was in my twenties. Its for the people in the media to search and criticize all of that. And if you Google my name, you will not have to struggle to know who I am .
What is your thought about rule of law in this country, given that you are a lawyer.
With due respect, there is no rule of law yet in this country. There is only the rule of persons. Let me give you the benchmark. When there is a rule of law, a change of government will not affect it because rule of law is where the law is no longer in the hands of the government to enforce.
There would be a rule of law if I am in council, as president, if a police constable sends a note to me in counsel through the security that they want to arrest the attorney general because he has just used his car to knock somebody on the way to a council meeting. That is when you have a rule of law. That is to say, the institution of the state, like the police and all of that are free from government interference.
And that when I am in government, I fear the police as much as the man who is selling oranges on the street. So that’s when you have rule of law. So we will get there. That is the journey we need to get to but we need to define it well. So when they say, for example, a certain president is helping the rule of law, you don’t have a rule of law, because rule of law is not the party manifesto.
