Adewole Adebayo, presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), has pledged to rescue Nigeria from worsening poverty and insecurity, arguing that the country has sufficient natural resources to guarantee prosperity if properly governed.
Adebayo made the pledge on Wednesday in Abuja at the SDP’s September National Convention, themed “Consolidating the blueprint for a new Nigeria to secure our homeland and defeat poverty.”
He said Nigeria’s economic crisis was not caused by a shortage of resources but by the failure of successive governments to translate the country’s enormous wealth into broad-based prosperity.
“If God wanted us to be poor, he would not deposit under us sufficient minerals that no civilisation in human history had got before,” Adebayo said.
The SDP candidate said poverty and insecurity had become sufficiently entrenched to threaten the future of Nigerians, requiring a collective effort to reverse the trend.
