Sowore noted this during his speech at the National Peace Committee with Nigerian political parties chairmen and presidential candidates in Abuja last Friday.
The presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, Omoyele Sowore, has accused supporters of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and its presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu of tearing the posters of candidates belonging to other parties in Lagos, Southwest Nigeria.
Sowore noted this during his speech at the National Peace Committee with Nigerian political parties chairmen and presidential candidates in Abuja last Friday.
According to the activist, if the 1993 presidential election had been allowed to stand and not annulled by anti-democracy actors, “we would not be signing a peace agreement today because that you are signing a peace agreement in Nigeria shows that elections have become war in Nigeria”.
He described some Nigerian elders and state governors as being the ones behind the violence that plagues elections in Nigeria, saying “peace is not breached by poor people, poor people suffer the consequences of violence”.
He condemned the violence that has marred elections in some states and complained about the lack of prosecution of the actors behind such deadly violence.
He said, “Some of them are the most violent and violence people in Nigeria. They demonstrated it in Kogi state. A woman was burnt alive in her house and till today, the killers of that woman have not been fished out in Nigeria. In Kano, there is someone campaigning that if they don't win the election, they will kill everybody in Kano. In Borno state, it is the same thing.”
Regarding Lagos where Tinubu was the governor between 1999 and 2007 and has become a political godfather deciding who becomes the governor since then, Sowore said the APC has a team of supporters who go about tearing posters of candidates of other parties.
Very Soon The Table Will Turn: My speech at the National Peace Committee parley with Nigerian political parties’ chairmen and Presidential candidates yesterday. #WeCantContinueLikeThis #SoworeMagashi2023 #RevolutionNow pic.twitter.com/PYvUr89hTh
— Omoyele Sowore (@YeleSowore) January 21, 2023
He also accused the state governor of intentionally frustrating other parties from paying to host banners in the state.
He said, “Lagos, where the APC hosts were, you cannot paste a poster if it's not Bola Ahmed Asiwaju poster in Lagos; I just came back from Lagos.
“They have a team that tears anybody's poster that is not their candidate's poster. You cannot even pay for your poster or banner to be hosted in Lagos. They have a bureaucracy in place that makes it impossible for you to do that.
“How can there be peace in a country where there is no justice? We keep lying to ourselves all the time. I also want to say for the rest of us as you've treated us today because we don't have resources and we don't have powerful connections, we don't have access to state resources. Most of the other candidates use and abuse state resources. They have governors who dip their hands into state treasury and use them to fund their candidate's activities and nobody is challenging them.
“Once in a while, when they want to tickle your fancy, the EFCC (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission) comes around to play at the playground of the political parties. Two political parties are particularly notorious for this. They buy votes at their primaries and in the final election.
“How do you compete with these people if elections are supposed to be about justice and bringing about great leadership and bringing about peace and development? How do great people win elections in a country where terrible people control all the resources of your country? That's another issue for another day.”
During the meeting, Sowore expressed confidence that he is “going to be the Nigerian president after February 2023”.