Sowore Rules AAC Out of Opposition Merger Talks

By Nathaniel Irobi

The presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, Omoyele Sowore, has ruled the party out of any opposition coalition talks.

This followed reports that a political commission led by Professor Pat Utomi intended to engage presidential candidates in talks aimed at producing a single opposition candidate for the 2027 election.

Sowore made the party’s position known in a public notice issued on Wednesday.

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He said neither he nor the AAC was part of the talks and would not be joining any such coalition.

“I have read a report in The Punch stating that a Political Commission led by Prof. Pat Utomi intends to hold talks with several presidential candidates, including myself, with the objective of producing a single opposition presidential candidate for the 2027 election,” he said.

“For the avoidance of doubt, neither I nor the African Action Congress is part of these talks, and we will not be joining any such coalition.”

Sowore said the AAC represents a fundamentally different political and ideological direction, adding that its agenda is driven by ideological clarity rather than political convenience or elite horse-trading.

He said the party could not enter into a coalition with the same political establishment it has consistently opposed, noting that many of the politicians presenting themselves as an alternative have operated within the same political order across the APC, PDP, Labour Party and other formations.

“Our opposition is not merely to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu or the All Progressives Congress. It is to the political system and governing practices that have produced decades of poverty, corruption, inequality, insecurity and underdevelopment,” he said.

Sowore said the AAC is offering Nigerians a different path founded on social and economic justice, equal rights, accountable government and the redistribution of political and economic power to the Nigerian people.

“We will not abandon that program for an arrangement whose principal objective is simply to replace one set of establishment politicians with another,” he said.

“The AAC is different. We know what we stand for, and we know the Nigeria we are fighting to build. We are not part of these coalition talks, and we will not be joining them.”