Presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 2023 election, Adewole Adebayo, said on Sunday that discussions are ongoing for a number of notable politicians to join the party.

These include two presidential candidates in the 2023 election, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who flew the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) flag, and Peter Obi, the Labour Party candidate.

Adebayo said Atiku and Obi’s men are in talks for their principals to team up with the SDP, which recently welcomed a former governor of Kaduna State and chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (SDP), Nasir el-Rufai, into its fold.

“People are joining my party, and we are welcoming them. You can see how active I am in welcoming them,” Adebayo said on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics.

“The only little issue we have with some of them is to change the culture where if you have not been in an environment where rules are taken seriously.

“Some of them are doing some Boy Scouts, black market operations, we are dealing with that. But we welcome them into the party. All these people you have mentioned, el-Rufai, Atiku Abubakar, even former Governor Peter Obi are coming. A lot of people are coming, and we will welcome them,” he said.

When asked to clarify if Obi, a former Anambra State governor and the Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 election, was joining the SDP, Adebayo maintained that talks were ongoing.

“Supposedly, until somebody joins, we don’t know. But people have told me, and the Financial Secretary (SDP) has also informed me, that they are talking. So we will welcome everybody,” the SDP chieftain said.

“Surely, when we come in, and we don’t become a tower of Babel; if we come in, follow the rules and allow one person to emerge transparently, clearly, without cheating, without criminality the way we did our convention in 2022, people applauded us transparently, no court case, no crisis, no allegations.

“If they can stick to our culture and follow the way we do in the SDP and produce a good alternative to Nigerians, we are going to manifestly defeat the APC and retire President Tinubu to Lagos or wherever he chooses in Nigeria,” he said.

Obi came third in the 2023 presidential election which was won by APC’s Bola Tinubu, while Atiku came second.

Channels Television reports that despite suggestions to the contrary, Obi has repeatedly said he remains in LP, the party that powered his 2023 presidential ambition.