The Social Democratic Party (SDP) has ratified its acting national chairman, Dr Olu Agunloye as the substantive chairman of the party.
In a motion by the Rivers state chairman, Saul Saro and supported by the chairman Akwa Ibom state, Willington Odion, at the National Executive Committee meeting, the party through voice votes endorsed Agunloye as the national chairman of the party.
In his speech, the new national chairman thanked all the organs of the party for the confidence reposed in him and other members of the national working committee who have been working to reposition the party.
While lamenting the systems failure in the country, Chief Agunloye stated that the SDP offers hope for Nigerians and would continue to do so as Nigerians would no longer be faced with only two alternatives which was like a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea.
“I stand here to bring you hope. The SDP family brings Nigerians hope. It is not the first time that this kind of hope will come we saw this happen almost 30 years ago and we believe that when it is 30 years we will repeat what we did in 1993.
“We bring hope to Nigerians at this particular time when the country and the people in the country and the structures of the country are beginning to look hopeless. We hear and see what they call systems failure -total electricity collapse.
“But, of course, we know that these are just symptoms of the major collapse in the architectural structure of Nigeria both socially and economically. But we stand before you today to bring hope, we bring assurance because we are providing Nigerians the alternative platform.
“We no longer agree with the remainder of Nigeria that we have to select between two devils, we no longer agree with the rest of Nigerians that we have to make a choice between the deep blue sea and the devil and we believe that in this particular case, SDP is offering you the flagship that will rescue Nigeria.
“The people who are here are just representatives of those people who are working, they are going to be called national executive committee but the representatives of the entire family, new generation that is offering alternative to Nigeria and a rescue for Nigeria.
“We are working towards the situation that by this time next year, we would have produced the president of Nigeria.
He paid tribute to all the party’s presidential aspirants, especially, Dr (Mrs) Dorothy Nuhu, Prof Femi Olufunmilade, Dr Kabiru Daudu and Prince Adewole Adebayo.
He expressed the hope that the party’s candidate in Ekiti state, Chief Segun Oni would emerge successful in the June 18 governorship election.
In a secretarial report, Malam Shehu Gabam said the party has been involved in the meetings with different groups with a view to expanding the frontiers of the party.
He also told the party about the exit of some of the former chieftains such as the former chairman, Prof Tunde Adeniran, the former National Organising Committee, Hon Emeka Atuma and a party chieftain Rufai Alkali who told the party that he was going back to the classroom.
In his goodwill message, frontline presidential aspirant Prince Adewole Adebayo stated that SDP knew how to offer quality to the country, adding that “the country was in search of a salvation boat.”
He said the history of SDP was way back in 1993 when the military tested the political atmosphere for parties to come up.
He noted that the leading light of the SDP such as Chief Solomon Lar, Abubakar Rimi and SDP’s current national secretary Gabam were all in PDP before it derailed.
Adebayo stated that the leading lights did not go astray as the PDP did but moved to revive the SDP.
