From Okwe Obi, Abuja
There is disarray in the Social Democratic Party (SDP) over the planned adoption of the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu, by some stalwarts for the February 25 presidential election.
A factional National Publicity Secretary, Rufus Aiyenigba, had ruled out such insinuation, noting that Prince Adebayo Adebayo, would not step down for anybody, not even Tinubu.
“The attention of the leadership of the SDP has been called to some dishonest and illegitimate publications by one Alfa Mohammed who had claimed he was speaking on behalf of our great Party, and purportedly with respect to the Party’s Presidential Candidate and collaboration with other political parties. But SDP disowns. Mohammed insists that ‘he is on his own.’
“As a matter of fact, Alfa Mohammed is a complete persona non-grata in the Social Democratic Party. He is a compulsive impostor and fabricator of falsehood.
“The Party had in the past put a disclaimer on this same man, a former member of the party when it was first discovered that he was fond of concocting spurious, sometimes fraudulent, and unfounded reports and stories,” he had said.
Alfa Mohammed, a factional SDP spokesman, said some stalwarts of the party had adopted the former Lagos State governor as their likely Plan B.
In a statement yesterday, titled: ‘Tinubu-SDP Alliance: Real Deal, Unstoppable,’ he clarified that the idea was conceived as far back as 2020 by “authentic leaders of the SDP to make sure that Nigerians never miss the treasure of having Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”
Mohammed said: “The much trumpeted TINUBU – SDP Alliance deal proposal is real and unstoppable.
“It is a plan “B” option conceived since the year 2020 by the authentic leaders of the SDP to make sure that Nigerians never miss the treasure of having Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as their next president if all our efforts to have him fly the SDP ticket in the forthcoming February 25th 2023 presidential election fails.
“The agenda, which is known and popular amongst the elected (not appointed) National Executive Committee members of the SDP, as well as the key stakeholders, is not well known to the denying ‘PROF JERRY GANA BOYS’ because they are strangers who joined the party from PDP just ‘yesterday’ along with Prof GANA who has since returned to PDP.
“They stayed behind to destabilise our party, thus they know little or nothing about the party’s structures and the Tinubu agenda.
“They should therefore be ignored as their fake claim to our party’s leadership will soon be put to an end by the Federal High Court.
“We will address Nigerians on the subject officially shortly.”