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Electoral Body, INEC, Buhari Government Should Be Ready For Consequences If They Rig 2023 General Elections – AAC Presidential Candidate, Sowore

Electoral Body, INEC, Buhari Government Should Be Ready For Consequences If They Rig 2023 General Elections – AAC Presidential Candidate, Sowore
September 2, 2022

Sowore said there were a lot of big-for-nothing parties in Nigeria whose structures are built on pockets, not interest.

 

The presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) and human rights activist, Omoyele Sowore, has warned against any plot to rig the 2023 general elections.

Sowore, who gave the warning on Friday while featuring on Channels TV Politics Today programme, said that any form of rigging of the election by the Muhammadu Buhari’s administration or the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), would be met with severe consequences.

The AAC candidate said, "Let them go and rig the election. People are using elections as the way of saying; maybe they will get their sense right. If the elections don't get it right, people will resort to other options.”

The #RevolutionNow convener, while speaking further on comments about the number of votes he garnered in 2019 probably based on his campaign strategy, said that Nigeria’s electoral umpire, INEC only allocated 33,000 votes to him.

He said that he never believed that the election was free and fair, even though he did not challenge the outcome of the election in the court of law and court of justice.

"I was allocated 33,000 votes by INEC. I have said it under oath when I was arrested and arraigned that I didn't believe that the election was legit.

"Even though I did not drag the outcome of the election with litigation matters, the election was not a legit election," Sowore said.

Asked if he thinks the outcome of the 2023 election would be different from that of 2019, he said, “Well, we hope it would be, and if it is not, they better be ready for the consequences. It is not a threat, it is our fundamental right to participate in elections and get the right result.” 

On the campaign strategy, Sowore said, "It hasn't changed; it just has evolved based on the dynamic nature of the political situation in Nigeria, in 2019 we used #takeitback we are still using it but we have gotten to a point where we are emphatic that #wecan'tcontinuelikethis; that's the new slogan.

"I only attended a meeting in 2019 where they said all the young candidates should meet and when I got there, I knew that it wasn't the kind of thing I wanted to do and I went out to sprout my ideas; I travelled to 34 to 35 states in Nigeria and I didn't have a helicopter or private jet and I spoke extensively about how to pull Nigeria out of the dungeons."

Sowore said there were a lot of big-for-nothing parties in Nigeria whose structures are built on pockets, not interest.

"There are a lot of big-for-nothing parties in Nigeria; Ours is a compact party that's focused on pulling Nigerians out of poverty and misery. I do not consider big party on the basis of size; I consider on the basis of relevance and importance that they bring to the people of the country.

"I don't want conversations to surround the mathematics of size but it should be the mathematics of relevant content. I'm proudly the only one who's around today because I have never stopped doing what I have always spoken to the Nigerian people that the issues are more important than the people who are in these big parties and the money that they have and what I said in 2018/19 is what those people who are mocking us in 2018/19 are doing now.

"They used to mock us that we did not have structures but we told them the people of Nigeria are the political structures of Nigeria and wherever they decide to pitch their tent is where their structure will be.

"We don't need structures; we need people, because structures are nomenclature for how you define pocket of interests; politically bought people don't go anywhere.”

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Politics