The Leader of the INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church, Primate Elijah Ayodele, has predicted that the Social Democratic Party (SDP) will surpass the PDP, the Labour Party, and other opposition groups in strength. In the 2027 elections, he believes the party would still fail to unseat President Bola Tinubu.
The Primate revealed this in a statement released by his media assistant, Oluwatosin Osho where he blamed this expected failure on the self-interested intentions of those switching to the SDP, not a sincere desire to oppose the ruling party.
In order to prevent electoral failures, he advised the party to carefully choose its candidates and to be wary of the flood of new members. He wrote: “SDP will be stronger than PDP and Labour. It will be the party to watch, but greed will make the party fail in 2027. Those who will be decamping there will not be focused on winning power but on enriching themselves.
Ayodele also mentioned that the party must be careful because of the influx of persons joining them and that they must take care not to give tickets to failures. Further, he stated that they must not allow sentiment and emotions to cloud their selection process.
Further, Primate Ayodele observed that the issue of the 2027 elections cannot be resolved through just two party coalitions, but however, requires a strong alliance among all opposition parties. He also stated that an attempt to unseat President Tinubu wouldn’t be an easy task and that following traditional political party structures would lead to failure. The prophet also asserted that alliance should be formed around a particular set of persons whom he mentioned. He stated: “Some governors, like Umo Eno of Akwa Ibom, Ahmadu Fintiri of Adamawa, and others that I will mention later, will not be part of the alliance,” he added.
This statement came after the close-door meeting that resulted in the movement of some prominent members PDP and APC defecting to SDP to form a coalition. Recall that the Primate advised the People’s Democratic Party against giving Abubakar Atiku a presidential ticket for the 2027 election. He also advised the former vice president to retire from his political ambition and try picking someone to mentor who would go into coalition with LP’s Peter Obo. according to him, it is the only way, Tinubu can be overthrowned.