The National Chairman of the Social Democratic Party, Mallam Shehu Gabam, has said the era of imposition of candidates in elections is gone.

Mr Gabam said this during an interview in Abuja on Sunday.

He stated, “The dynamics have changed. It’s not like before. The mindsets of Nigerians are evolving. Reality is catching up with everybody. This era of imposition is basically gone. Now what the party needs to do is to strategise and get credible people to contest elections. Once you have a credible personality that will contest elections you don’t worry about other things.

“Other things are secondary issues. But you need a quality individual who believes in what he is pursuing, who believes in people and investing in them. The entire scenario will change no matter how might the Federal Government might be.’’

Mr Gabam advised political parties to be strategic in hunting for credible candidates to contest elections on their platform.

“If a candidate is popular, people will come out and vote for him. But if the candidate is being imposed, people will not come out to vote and then voter apathy will continue with higher percentage.
“So as the dynamics are changing, political parties also need to be shifting ground to be in tune with the reality. That’s the only way. Otherwise the parties might not survive it. Unless a party is flexible, dynamic and ready to go with the thinking of this generation it fizzles out,’’ he said.

Mr Gabam added that the SDP was already following the trend with the people and their thinking.

“We are melting into it. We are adjusting where we need to adjust. We are not going to impose. We have never imposed a candidate,’’ he said.
Asked what the citizens should expect from the party in the Edo and Ondo governorship elections, Mr Gabam said that the party would fill the best candidates for each of the elections.

He added that the party would continue to be law-abiding and would not be found wanting, even in the upcoming re-run and by-election in February.
“We’re going to field a strong candidate. We’ll give it a big challenge. We’ll be part of the process. We will not boycott the process even though there are a lot of calls by parties to boycott any further election because they don’t believe there will be justice and fairness.
“But, I don’t belong to that school of thought. I believe when we are participating, we’ll be correcting the errors,’’ Mr Gabam said.

(NAN)