Khadijah: SDP not for sale, slams exorbitant nature of political process
Khadijah Okunnu-Lamidi, a Presidential aspirant under the platform of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) has slammed the exorbitant nature of the political process which she said fosters godfatherism at the detriment of the economy.
Okunnu-Lamidi made this assertion on Wednesday during an interview on AriseTV monitored.
According to Ripples Nigeria, she aimed this jab at the leading political parties in response to a question about being a stop-gap candidate for bigwigs who may move to the party after they fail to get the ticket in other parties.
The top two political parties — the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party — pegged the sale of their presidential nomination forms at N100 million and N50 million respectively.
In the interview, Okunnu-Lamidi stated that “the SDP is not for sale, considering that the other parties are for the highest bidder — our forms are free for the women. The party has decided to go ahead with the primaries, on May 14, while eliminating the possibility of a hijack.
“When we declared, we did that as an independent and because we can’t run as an independent, we had discussions with 70 percent of the working committees of other parties. The SDP is center-left and has a mix of capitalism and socialism.
“There are three other aspirants and we slug it out at the primaries. “We” means carrying the mandate of the people in order to further the voice of the people after due consultations with fellow progressive minds.”
She further berated the current leaders who she said lack the wherewithal to handle challenges bedeviling the country, especially on the thorny issue of subsidy.
“The issue of subsidy is unsustainable but the removal has to be done in the right way, by considering the people. It needs to be phased out gradually in order to ensure a high ROI — education, health, security et al.
“It is unfortunate that our politicians can’t redress the challenges but it is not their fault; they cannot give what they don’t have. Our present leaders need to step aside due to the youths and the technological advances needed to drive the economy,” the SDP Presidential aspirant noted.
