Omoyele Sowore, human rights activist and presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, has fired a broadside at Nigeria’s opposition landscape, questioning the credibility of the African Democratic Congress and calling out the Labour Party over its reported alignment with President Bola Tinubu.

Sowore noted that the very politicians now driving the ADC including former Interior Minister Rauf Aregbesola, former Attorney-General Abubakar Malami, former Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi, and former Kaduna Governor Nasir El-Rufai are founding members of the APC who helped bring Tinubu’s political dynasty to power. He argued that their migration to the ADC does not represent a break from the system but a continuation of it, pointing out that some of the party’s major sponsors only joined APC in 2023 and certain figures remain actively connected to the ruling party.

On the Labour Party, Sowore pointed to the reported declaration by the party’s South-West Vice Chairman, Abayomi Arabambi, that key leaders including Abia Governor Alex Otti had agreed in principle to support Tinubu’s re-election in 2027. Sowore used this as evidence that the Labour Party, far from being a genuine opposition force, had effectively become an extension of the APC’s political project.

The activist declined an invitation to the recent opposition summit in Ibadan, describing the gathering as an attempt to recycle failed political actors under the guise of resistance. He maintained that his party, the AAC, would not be part of any arrangement that repackages the same class of politicians who he holds responsible for Nigeria’s decline.

“Nigeria does not need a rearrangement of the same broken pieces; it needs a complete break from the past,” Sowore said.