Omoyele
Sowore, the publisher and publisher of popular online news platform,
SaharaReporters, has declared his ambition to contest in the 2019
presidential election as he speaks on how he'll defeat Buhari.
Omoyele Sowore (Photo: Emmnuel Ogala)
The Publisher of popular news website, Sahara Reporters, Omoyele
Sowore, has thrown his hat into Nigeria’s political ring. He is now
gearing up to run in the country’s forthcoming presidential election in
2019.
In this interview with PREMIUM Times' Editor-in-Chief, Musikilu
Mojeed, Sowore explains why he is joining politics, how he will defeat
President Muhammadu Buhari, how he will run Nigeria if elected and what
he will do with Sahara Reporters once he becomes President.
You have indicated you might run for president in the 2019 election. Why are you crossing into partisan politics?
I’ve always been in the forefront of the agitation and struggle to
move NIGERIA forward – first as a student and youth activist during
military regimes. Since 1999, my focus has been on improving and
sanitizing the democratic space. This is a natural progression of my
commitment to moving Nigeria forward. This will not be politics as
usual. I have always been a part of the movement to move Nigeria
forward. I have always played a leading role in that movement.
This is a movement. It will be the largest mobilization of
Nigeria’s ignored and dispossessed people. It will be the most direct
engagement of a people in their own political future. I’ve always
offered Nigerians a platform for amplifying their concerns and dreams
for Nigeria. I am continuing that struggle. Yes – we will be part of a
coalition of parties. These will all be progressive parties – committed
to nothing other than the advancement of the Nigerian nation. It is
Nigeria’s moment to see revolutionary politics in action!
Are you not abandoning activism that way?
Activism is simply advancing a pro-people agenda. For too long we
have focused on using borrowed voices in the political realm while we’ve
focused on creating awareness. That has failed. Since 1999 – the
progressive movement has been disappointed by the actions and inactions
of those we have left to handle the affairs of Nigeria while we reduced
ourselves to election monitors, NGO leaders, and street protesters.
In the course of doing these, we have inadvertently supported some
of the cruelest and mediocre to occupy political power. Sometimes the
most revolutionary thing to do is to get into the ring. Obama was an
activist who became president. Mandela was an activist who became
president. Everyone will agree that their principled commitment to
struggle continued even when they were in office. So it is possible to
stay committed to an activist agenda even when in office.
Are you saying Buhari has failed and not worthy of being re-elected?
Just a little over a week ago – over 100 young girls were taken by
Boko Haram in Dapchi. Buhari’s appeal was supposed to be a tough stance
against corruption and an ability to address the security crises posed
by Boko Haram. No single major victory has been notched in the
anti-corruption fight. Boko Haram is still alive and kicking. And the
president’s inaction and lack of leadership is causing the
herdsmen-farmers conflicts to take on an even more dangerous dimension.
The Nigerian state is in shambles.
Election is less than a year away. You are still holed up
in your base in New York? When are you going to find a party, and then
mobilise support for your candidacy?
I think it is incontrovertible that in and out of Nigeria, I have
been an effective contributor to the struggle for the advancement of
good governance in Nigeria. The efforts to mobilize progressives and to
form a coalition of progressive parties and organizations is underway. I
am using my time in the U.S. to mobilize diaspora Nigerians. This
weekend, for instance, I will be holding a town hall in Maryland with
Nigerians. I am also spending a great deal of my time meeting with my
strategy and policy teams – members of whom include some really
accomplished Nigerians. Unknown to many I have been on the ground
Nigeria in the last two months.The work goes on. I will certainly be
spending more time on the ground in Nigeria.
Prosecuting election in Nigeria is known to cost several billions of naira. Where will you find the resources for this project?
Elections are always expensive – that’s true. However what is also
true is that monies spent in Nigerian politics is not mainly focused on
political mobilization or electioneering campaigns and organziation. As a
political movement for true change, we will not be spending money on
buying votes or distributing rice to the electorate. Our monetary needs
will be greatly reduced. We will be sourcing funds directly from the
Nigerian people. Nigerians have demonstrated a capacity to devote their
resources to projects that they believe in.
The recent team that represented Nigeria in bobsledding at the
Winter Olympics raised almost $200,000 – a lot of it from Nigerians. We
are already seeing and receiving commitments for support. Our approach
will revolutionize the way politics is funded in Nigeria. There is also a
lot of support that is coming in the form of goodwill donations. For
instance – I’ll be in Maryland this weekend at a town hall. A group of
concerned Nigerians are funding that event. We also have something that
counts for a lot – an army of technology savvy supporters and media
platforms that will amplify our voice to the Nigerian people.
Barack Obama raised millions of dollars from Nigerians in the US
alone in 2008/2009 and subsequently after. 100,000 Nigerian contributing
$200 per person can help fund a clean election devoid of dirty money.
With that, we can win the Presidency and bring them back a lot of
change!
You are from the south of Nigeria. There are those saying
you should wait till 2023 when Buhari or any other northerner would have
completed the north’s turn of leadership rotation? What do you say to
that?
Where has our “Turn – by – Turn” politics gotten us? I’m a firm
believer that when it comes to the life of a nation – all sentiments
must be set aside and only the most capable hands should be employed to
manage the affairs of Nigerians. If I believed in Buhari’s ability to
lead NIGERIA, I would have supported him. When Jonathan – a Southerner
like me was in office, I had a principled opposition to the way he was
running Nigeria. It was Albert Einstein that said, “it is madness to
keep doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome.” Nigeria
has a unique opportunity in 2019 to elevate competence over tribalism,
elevate character over dishonesty, principle over indecisiveness. I’m
sure when the dust clears there will be candidates from across Nigeria
expressing an interest in the presidency. Let Nigerians decide who
should lead them.
Our patriots from across Nigeria won’t bother about zoning when
they realize the person running the country is completely detribalized
and doesn’t treat anyone different because of their tribe, religion,
creed, and class. We have had it all. Mediocrity hiding behind zoning
and a wicked, selfish sense of entitlement. The only thing zoning does
is empower political actors to enrich themselves and plug their friends
and cronies in the position of authority to steal, kill and destroy. For
the rest of us north or south, we are zoned to misery.
Recently Garba Shehu, a spokesperson to the President, said
Buhari’s followership in Kano and across Nigeria is so huge and
phenomenal that it has to be studied by political scientists. How can
you defeat such a man in 2019?
Buhari’s followership is large – but remember that it took four
tries and an alliance with the South-West and with progressive
democratic forces before he was able to become President. We are all
witnesses to the unprecedented set of circumstances that saw an
incumbent president defeated at the polls. If there is anything we have
learned in the last few years, it is the fact that the Nigerian
electorate has become impatient with purposeless leadership. My
candidacy is generating significant interest across Nigeria, especially
amongst the youth. The youth demographic is the largest single voting
block. The coalition of progressives, youths and previously
disenfranchised Nigerians that we are building will be a force to reckon
with. I have been in the business of building movements since my time
as a student activist in the late 80s and early 90s. I am confident that
we will be able to build a broad coalition of Nigerians committed to
taking their country back and setting it firmly on a path to prosperity
and unprecedented progress.
Omoyele Sowore
What will you do differently if elected president of Nigeria?
Nigeria struggles because past presidents have had three major
issues. Firstly, there is an abject absence of a clear vision as to
where the country should be headed. Where should NIGERIA be in the next
five, 10 or even 50 years? Where are the national plans that map out the
country’s vision and the paths to their actualization aside from the
propaganda we see on NTA? Today, we are impressed by China’s sustained
growth, but since 1953 China has produced a series of 5-year plans that
has guided their growth. Now they are on their 13th five-year plan
(2016-2020). With that China became the most powerful and prosperous
nation on earth using its populace as its best resource.
China solved its housing crisis and even now boast of unoccupied
apartments in “ghost cities” built in the last 10 years. China built one
of the fastest rail services with an amount of money equivalent to the
sums stolen during the oil imports scam. Same goes for the the UAE.
Dubai was built into the architectural marvel that is now a magnet to
NIGERIA’s thieving elites. I will be instituting a series of four-year
plans to overlap with Nigeria’s political tenure system that will chart
our path to growth and progress. Secondly, even where a clear vision
might exist, nepotism, tribalism and favoritism has robbed us of the
service of our best people. I am a completely detribalized Nigerian. My
antecedents are that of an activist that has worked to build alliances
and networks across this nation over the last 30 years.
I understand first hand the value of having competent and capable
people in the right positions. I’ve created a world-class media company
in the last 12 years and taught in a private college for eight years
helping to mould some of America’s greatest minds.
Thirdly, corruption has crippled us as a nation. Where past
presidents have been slow in tackling this issue and sometimes even
complicit through their actions or inactions in promoting corruption, I
will be decisive in dealing with this cancer that has ravaged the
Nigerian nation.
You are a long-term activist and indeed a very popular
figure across Nigeria. But Gani Fawehinmi was an activist who served
Nigerians all his life. He made to be president in 2003 but the same
people he served for almost his entire life abandoned him at the polls.
Are you not worried you might get a similar treatment?
Gani was, as you said, a household name across Nigeria. The reality
was that in 2003, there was still some hope and expectation by the
Nigerian people that the status quo political system would be able to
lead NIGERIA to progress and growth. It is now clear that those largely
naive aspirations were ill-founded. After numerous failed governments,
Nigerians have demonstrated that they are ready to try new concepts and
ideas and to go beyond the status quo in seeking solutions. That led
them to pick a south-south Ijaw man as president in 2011 and in electing
an opposition candidate who had failed to win the presidency three
times before, in 2015. Gani came before his time. Also, there are other
factors now present in our current political reality. For example, the
power of social media helping young people to engage and interact, the
power of technology to help change election outcomes, an accuracy of
results, real-time reporting and capture of results.
It is also important to state that elections in 2003 and beyond
under Obasanjo and the Peoples Democratic Party were not worthy to be
referred to as credible elections. For instance, just imagine if
Nigerians seized the opportunity offered by Gani in 2003 and thus
elected him over an Olusegun Obasanjo, just imagine where will be today.
Imagine, an Obafemi Awolowo or Aminu Kano over a Shehu Shagari. There
is an appetite by the Nigerian people for candidates with character, and
a proven and demonstrable track record of being able to drive for real
change. The APC has failed Nigerians in this area. The movement we are
building will be offering revolutionary change.
On the platform of which political party are you planning to run?
That is something we are working on. We are currently in
discussions with progressive groups and parties, the goal is to have a
broad coalition of progressive parties that could lend their structures
and ideologies to defeat the old order. When the time is right we will
be announcing what party platforms that will be utilized.
You have spent over 12 years of your life building
SaharaReporters into a formidable news and anti-corruption platform?
What becomes of the website now that you are crossing into partisan
politics?
Sahara Reporters will continue to speak truth to power. The
platform is more than just Sowore. When I win the presidency, I will be
turning over all of my assets to a blind trust that will run it. Sahara
Reporters will continue to be run by independent-minded citizen
activists. Even now, the website is managed by several others who have
been groomed and schooled in the founding traditions of the website.
That is what Sahara Reporters is and that is how it will remain.
SaharaReporters is driven by its ever loyal readers and users!
Thank you very much for speaking to us.
Thank you very much too for interviewing me.
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Source: PREMIUM Times
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