African Action Congress (AAC) presidential candidate Omoyele Sowore has responded to the National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Ajibola Basiru, who called him a “skit maker” and a “comedian”.
Basiru made the remarks on Wednesday during an appearance on Politics Today, a Channels Television programme anchored by Seun Okinbaloye.
In a statement on X, Sowore said he and Basiru fought military dictatorship together in the 1990s. He posted a 1998 photograph of the two men, taken when he led the pro-democracy group Congress of Progressive Youths (COPY).
“I watched an interview on Politics Today on Channels Television, anchored by Seun Okinbaloye, in which the APC National Secretary, Ajibola Basiru, called me a ‘skit maker’ and ‘comedian’,” he wrote.
Sowore said he received Basiru at the University of Lagos after Basiru was expelled from the University of Ilorin in 1992 over student activism. According to him, he and fellow activists, including Kunle Adegoke, popularly called K-Rad, helped Basiru get back into university to study law.
“Both eventually graduated with flying colours and went on to accomplish great things,” he said, adding that their shared history made the comments particularly disappointing.
He accused the APC chieftain of abandoning the democratic ideals they once stood for because of the perks of political office. Sowore insisted his own activism has stayed consistent with those ideals, and that the fight for democracy and human dignity cannot be dismissed as entertainment.
“The struggle for justice, democracy, freedom and the preservation of human dignity is neither skit-making nor comedy,” he said.
Sowore also rejected Basiru’s argument that opposition candidates should be ashamed of losing to President Bola Tinubu in the 2023 presidential election, calling the position deeply flawed.
He added that political appointments are temporary and predicted that the Tinubu administration would eventually leave office, as the military regimes before it did.
“Political appointments are temporary. Tinubu’s regime will come and go, just like the military regimes we confronted in our youth,” he said.
Sowore ended by accusing Basiru of turning against the cause he once championed.
“What is truly comical is watching yesterday’s beneficiaries of resistance become today’s defenders of the very oppression they once fought against,” he wrote.
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