The Social Democratic Party, SDP, governorship candidate in Oyo State, Mr Saheed Oladele, has said the electorate need to wake up to the reality of supporting their preferred candidates for political office financially.

Oladele stated this on Monday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, in Ibadan.

The governorship candidate said the electorate’s financial support to their choice candidates would make all the difference in electing credible leaders into office.

“As long as people continue to expect politicians who have embezzled public funds to share money shortly before elections, there will never be real change.

“Instead, people should contribute whatever they can, no matter how little, to support credible leaders.

“When such a persons eventually get into office, he will understand that the people truly brought him to power and not stolen money or political manipulation,” he said

Oladele said the SDP has credible candidates seeking political office and the followership to win governorship and other positions in the state in the 2027 general elections.

He gave assurance that if the party’s candidates are elected into office in the 2027 general election, Nigeria would be better for it.

Oladele said he decided to contest for the governorship position in the state because things were not the way it ought to be, adding that there was hardship in the state.

The SDP governorship candidate said that if voted into power, the standard of education, healthcare would be improved just as employment creation would receive priority.

“When you truly have organic followership, you feel free to make independent decisions.

“That is why when I left the All Progressives Congress, APC, to join SDP, many people were shocked, but all my followers are still with me,” Oladele said.

The SDP governorship candidate said he does not have any doubts about the strength of the SDP in Oyo State to produce the next governor.

Arise News political editor, Sumner Sambo, has urged the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, Peter Obi, to stay back in the party and fight.

Sambo made the call on Monday when he appeared as a guest in an interview on Arise Television’s ‘Morning Show’.

His call came after a Federal High Court in Lokoja, Kogi State, set aside its earlier judgment directing the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to register the NDC as a political party.

“Why is it that anytime Peter Obi gets into one party, there seems to be a decision or an abrupt measure to escalate problems in that party, or to ensure that the party doesn’t compete in the elections?

“So, I think Obi himself knows it, and this is the time for him to stay in the NDC and fight, not to start thinking of leaving the NDC. He should stay in the NDC and make sure that he fights it out and come out victorious.

“If they pursued him from the PDP to Labour Party, and then to the African Democratic Congress, ADC, what makes him think that if he leaves the NDC, that they won’t fight him again?

“It’s already too late, so let him stay in the NDC, show his political credentials, and then fight it out,” he said.

A chieftain of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, Eze Chikamnayo, has alleged that there is a deliberate onslaught by President Bola Tinubu against opposition parties.

Chikamnayo made the allegation in an interview on Arise Television on Monday.

He described last week’s judgment of the Federal High Court sitting in Lokoja, which nullified the registration of the NDC as notorious and very dangerous.

“There is a deliberate onslaught against opposition parties by the President.

“I want to use this opportunity to plead with his excellency President Tinubu to get his hands off the opposition parties.

“All it takes for peaceful change is for him to allow democracy to happen. If he makes peaceful change impossible, a violent change will be inevitable,” he said.

Recall that a Federal High Court in Lokoja, Kogi State, recently set aside its earlier judgment directing the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to register the NDC as a political party.