Social Democratic Party presidential candidate Adewole Adebayo has said Nigerians are more honest and compassionate than people in Britain and the United States, blaming the country’s leadership rather than its citizens for the reputation Nigeria carries abroad.
Adebayo made the remarks in an interview on the Naija Unfiltered Podcast, where he discussed his international career, leadership and what he described as the character of ordinary Nigerians. He returned unopposed as the SDP’s presidential nominee for the 2027 election in May 2026, having contested and lost the 2023 presidential race on the same platform.
According to Adebayo, his professional work and investments have given him the legal right to live and work in 21 countries, an experience he said had strengthened rather than weakened his faith in Nigerians. “All I can say is that I have travelled, and you can check the record: I have a legitimate right to live and work in 21 countries by virtue of my professional work and investments,” he said.
The lawyer, who said he had become a fellow of an arbitration institute in Singapore, drew a comparison between the pay of public officials there and that of their Nigerian counterparts. He argued that economic hardship could shape people’s conduct anywhere, regardless of nationality.
“It is the duty of a leader of a country to not push your people to the point of extinction and expect them to not cave under it,” he said.
Adebayo said Nigerian leaders should lead by example, adding that citizens could easily see through officials who campaign against corruption while allegedly enriching themselves. He said 99 per cent of his own wealth was managed by others, and that hiring Nigerians over the years had rarely disappointed him.
“Rarely have I regretted hiring Nigerians to work for me. Nigeria has more honest people than Britain, than Americans, than anything. Nigerians have a heart of compassion,” he said.
He said Nigerians should not be portrayed as inherently dishonest, placing responsibility instead on those in charge. “We are good people, but our leaders are the worst example,” he said.
The comments are the latest in a run of interventions from Adebayo as campaigning for 2027 gathers pace. In separate remarks earlier in September, he pledged to rescue Nigeria from poverty and insecurity, argued that four years was enough to transform the country if governed with discipline, and challenged President Bola Tinubu to a public debate. He has also proposed a review of petrol pricing, contending that Nigerians should not pay international fuel prices while their wages remain far below international levels.
Adebayo’s framing of national character speaks to a long standing debate about how Nigeria is perceived abroad, particularly on questions of fraud and public integrity. His position, in effect, is that the failings often attached to the country belong to a political class rather than to the population, a message aimed squarely at voters weary of hardship and distrustful of the establishment.
Whether that argument gains traction is a separate question. The SDP remains a minor force in presidential terms. Adebayo polled 80,267 votes in 2023, a small fraction of the national total, and the 2027 field is expected to be dominated once again by the larger parties. His claims about honesty and comparative integrity are also assertions of personal conviction rather than statements that can be independently measured, and he offered no data to support the comparison with Britain and the United States.
For now his campaign appears built less on the machinery of a big party than on direct appeals to disillusioned citizens, positioning himself as an outsider who trusts Nigerians more than their leaders do. His own account of that leadership was blunt, and it is a theme he is likely to return to as the race develops.