SDP Crisis Deepens as Group Disowns Gabam as National Chairman

The crisis within the Social Democratic Party (SDP), a key opposition party in the coalition aiming to unseat President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has intensified. A faction of the SDP has rejected the party’s National Chairman, Alhaji Shehu Gabam, and denounced what it called the “illegal replacement” of duly elected state executives.
In a statement titled ‘Anti-Tinubu Coalition’ and signed by Alhaji Alfa Mohammed, the faction’s national publicity secretary, the group accused the coalition—working with a segment of the party—of orchestrating the removals. The faction has declared its support for Chief Wole Adedina as its rightful National Chairman.
According to the statement, “While the authentic SDP National Executive Committee now led by Chief Adesina draws its legitimacy from being the direct offshoot of Oba Olu Falae-led National Executive Committee that received the PDP defectors into the party, the second faction led by Shehu Gabam relies on a wrongly procured INEC recognition that has remained a subject of litigation since 2019.
“Flowing from above, the SDP National Executive Committee unequivocally states that the party is not for sale or lease to any group, and will not be part of any anti-government plots or coalition that lacks a clear alternative agenda for Nigeria’s transformation.”
Mohammed blamed what he described as “the influx of some aggrieved politicians in desperate coalition to “send President Bola Ahmed Tinubu back to Lagos without showcasing any clear cut alternative agenda for Nigeria’s transformation” as one of the problems the SDP is facing.
“The SDP National Executive Committee unequivocally states that the party is not for sale or lease to any group, and will not be part of any anti-government plots or coalition that lacks a clear alternative agenda for Nigeria’s transformation,” it stated.
As a result, Alfa Mohammed said the SDP “will continue to engage the government constructively and hold it accountable, but will not join of any self-centered coalition aimed at derailing the government of the day and denying Nigerians the benefits of their voting in the 2023 presidential election.”
The faction, therefore, directed its leaders “at all levels to resist any attempt to usurp their leadership and report such actions to the appropriate authorities, while leaving the party’s doors open for genuinely intentioned new members.”
He also charged “members and supporters” to stay calm and await further briefings on the true state of things in the party, while efforts to return INEC recognition to the authentic National Executive Committee elected by them is intensified and brought to a successful end.