Sowore, Basiru trade barbs over campaign, activist past
All Progressives Congress National Secretary Ajibola Basiru and African Action Congress presidential candidate Omoyele Sowore have exchanged insults over Sowore’s electoral standing and their shared history of activism against military rule.
The dispute followed the AAC’s request for a venue, food, drinks and logistical support for 5,000 participants at the inauguration of its Presidential Campaign Council on 11 November 2026. The party cited equal treatment of political parties.
*Sowore and Basiru
All Progressives Congress National Secretary Ajibola Basiru and African Action Congress presidential candidate Omoyele Sowore have exchanged insults over Sowore’s electoral standing and their shared history of activism against military rule.
The dispute followed the AAC’s request for a venue, food, drinks and logistical support for 5,000 participants at the inauguration of its Presidential Campaign Council on 11 November 2026. The party cited equal treatment of political parties.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Wednesday, Basiru dismissed Sowore’s political influence and challenged him to secure a state legislative seat.
“Sowore is a skit maker. Let him struggle to even get a seat in the House of Assembly as a politician, and then people will begin to take him seriously,” he said.
Basiru also claimed that the number of rejected ballots in the 2023 elections exceeded the votes cast for the AAC.
Responding on X that day, Sowore accused Basiru of mocking the pro-democracy movement from which he had benefited.
Sowore shared a photograph of the pair taken in 1998 and recalled their involvement in activism during the 1990s. He claimed that he and other activists, including lawyer Kunle Adegoke, helped Basiru return to university after his expulsion from the University of Ilorin in 1992.
“The struggle for justice, democracy, freedom and the preservation of human dignity is neither skit-making nor comedy,” Sowore wrote.
He accused Basiru of abandoning the principles they once defended because of the privileges of political office.
Basiru rejected Sowore’s account in a post on X on Thursday, saying they had no relationship before he gained admission to study law at the University of Lagos.
“I did not have any relationship with you before I got admitted to the University of Lagos,” he said.
Basiru maintained that he secured admission on merit, citing a score of 310 in the university entrance examination, which he said was the highest among applicants to the law faculty that year.
He repeated his criticism of Sowore’s presidential ambition and accused him of misleading young people through his claims to revolutionary leadership.
