A former presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, AAC, Omoyele Sowore, says current coalition plans will boost President Bola Tinubu’s bid for re-election rather than challenge it.
Sowore gave this warning on Tuesday when he played host to Channels Television’s Politics Today, adding that the efforts lack vision and ideology.
“It is what they [the coalition] are doing that will make it easy for him (Tinubu) to rerun and return to office. They are preventing the real, organic coalition of the oppressed from emerging. People are getting distracted — Nigerians actually think these guys are fighting for them,” he said.
He also described the current coalition talks as hollow, lacking ideological substance and purpose.
“I’m not a lone voice — the coalition is what is lonely. That’s why they can’t even hold meetings or find a party to join.
“Now they say they want to register a party — that’s loneliness. Any coalition without ideology is a lonely coalition. There’s no coalition without conviction, character, or integrity,” he said.
Sowore’s statements are coming following growing political realignment as various actors position themselves for the next presidential race.
Recall that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has been championing the opposition front.
The 2023 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has confirmed holding talks with Labour Party’s Peter Obi and former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai — who recently defected from the APC to the Social Democratic Party, SDP.
Meanwhile, the coalition efforts appear far from being cohesive as the PDP Governors’ Forum has openly distanced itself from the talks, citing concerns about undermining the party’s internal stability.
In the same vein, Obi has made it clear that he will not join any alliance formed solely for seizing power, insisting that any merger must address Nigeria’s deeper governance problems.
Sowore, while offering his own vision for a way forward, urged Nigerians to stop depending on political elites and begin crafting solutions on their terms.
“The people need to understand that the only way out is the one they design for themselves. There has to be a different direction.
“If you keep letting them do what they are doing with you — and you get distracted by all these conversations about coalitions — you are going to find yourself in a worse situation than now. That has been Nigeria’s story since the emergence of civil rule,” he added.