Real reasons we left PDP for SDP - Prof. Adeniran
Prof. Tunde Adeniran is a former Minister of Education, one-time Nigerian Ambassador to Germany, and a founding member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) who contested for the chairmanship of the party in December 2017 but lost to Prince Uche Secondus
when it starts getting to a situation where that opportunity to serve the people could no longer be there, there will no longer be justice, it is bad. If some other people are elected through a fair, credible process, I will work. I have done it in the past. I will work with them. But the principle involved is that you cannot continue to do things the wrong way, you are destroying the future. When you go against the principles, policies, programmes and vision of anybody, it is sabotage. So the people behind it are people who have betrayed the trust. Sometimes when I look back and I think through, those who have gone, founders of this party like Rimi, Ekwueme, Solomon Lar, I feel they would be shaking in their graves to see what is happening. Those who are still around, why would someone for instance, Jerry Gana who was spending like 18 hours per day since the formative years of this party, leave such a party. He was involved at every critical stage of the formation of the PDP but he decided to leave. So it is a painful situation.
DT: Is the movement of aggrieved chieftains of various political parties to the SDP and especially some former ministers who served under President Obasanjo a fulfillment of his recent proclamation?
The way I look at it is that former president Obasanjo is a very passionate person when it comes to the issue of Nigeria and Africa. And what I see in this regard is the meeting of minds and God is also at work. While we were thinking about how to rescue this country, I have seen this as a decisive action. We have to change the narrative, we can’t afford to leave this country the way it is. I believe that when we were thinking about how to rescue this country, he too was preoccupied as an elder statesman, what could be done to redeem the nation, to rescue the situation. What he is coming up with, the Coalition for Nigeria, is in tune with what we are doing and what we also believe in. There should be a third force, the coming together of people who are determined to rescue this country. At the time he was raising the issues, of course, all the issues he raised, many people felt the same way but they were not as courageous as he had been. We share views and we also believe that people who also believe in this will join us to work together.
DT: Did you meet with Obasanjo before your defection to the SDP?
We always have the opportunity of meeting the former president. He is a very active person and where there are issues being discussed about Nigeria, Africa and even the world, you will always find him there. So we interact with him from time to time and as far as this party is concerned, he is not going to be a partisan person and I believe he said it himself. He is an elder statesman but he will not shy away from encouraging a movement that will salvage this country.