Adewole Adebayo, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate for president in the 2023 election, on Friday, urged Nigerians who have written to international organizations pleading for intervention in Nigeria’s fledgling democracy to stop doing so because their efforts would be in vain.
Adebayo, who claimed the letter would not be read, insisted that Nigerians as a whole should bear the blame.
This was in response to a letter written to the United States Government by renowned author, Chimamanda Adichie.
Adichie had called for an intervention after she lampooned the recent electoral process with Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress emerging victorious.
During a special post-mortem discourse on the 2023 general election held by the Nigeria Institute of Internal Affairs (NIIA) in Lagos, Prince Adebayo answered questions from reporters as follows, “We started on time to examine our electoral processes and our attitude to better governance.
“My own take home is that Nigerians are self-aware, they know that they need elections to be okay, and we have stopped pretending that our elections are okay.
“Secondly we are also trying to take responsibility, INEC should take responsibility, the political class should take responsibility, the media also should take responsibility.
“Everything set aside is for the wellbeing of the people. People have to determine whether they want better governance or they prefer the usual four years rituals.
“So when you take responsibility, the next is to take autonomy, Nigeria is a mature country so we don’t need to look outside for salvation. In other words, writing to Bidden, Blair or Sunnak will not help because those letters will not be read, I can guarantee you. There is nothing you write in that letter that they don’t know already. They are taking positions according to the interest of their own country. So stop ridiculing yourself.
“You can address your letter inward for Nigeria to take responsibility because we asked for independence and we got it. So we must be responsible trying to educate ourselves.”
