Omoyele Sowore, a former presidential candidate, has given his view on the ongoing political developments in the country, where opposition figures are aligning with various parties to form a coalition, news.ng reports.
Speaking on the matter during an interview on Channels Television on Monday, Sowore said those involved in the coalitions are merely interest groups seeking to grab power rather than improve the lives of the people.
He said, “They are not coalitions. These are just interest groups and persons who are interested in power. The real coalition that needs to happen, even the 2015 coalition you are talking about, wasn’t just the merger of these political parties that made it happen. It was that the Nigerian people were tired of the People’s Democratic Party at that time and decided that they would ease them out of power.”
The human rights activist referenced the emergence of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2012, which he noted came into existence as a result of public discontent.
According to Sowore, a chieftain of the African Action Congress (AAC), those who participated in the formation of the APC were individuals with selfish motives.
He said, “So the coalition that you mentioned at that time, the APC, merely rode on the back of public discontent. Public discontent has reached the highest level of decibels now. But what is different is that you can’t deceive people with a coalition anymore. So, you’re gonna set up a coalition made up of the people who took Nigeria to where it is now, and you are talking to political parties whose only interest is to grab power. Nigerian people, I think, are wiser than that,” he explained.
He emphasised that the only coalition needed in the country is one with the downtrodden, whom he described as people bigger than the political parties.
“What I’ve maintained on your show consistently is that there’s a coalition to be made with the oppressed, the people who are cheated, the people who are disenfranchised, the people who are disenchanted with the system. And they are bigger than the political parties you call coalition,” he noted.
While outlining the objectives of his party, AAC, he noted that a coalition should be formed with people who are desirous of change and liberation from economic oppression.
“But that we can form a coalition of the people of this country who are desirous of liberation, who want to have economic progress, who want to send their children to school, and who want to live in peace and security, both national, economic and infrastructural security in this country. That is what we’re about. Not to find ourselves in coalitions that are happening today, and by tomorrow it has collapsed,” he added.
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