Main reason I didn’t approach the tribunal is lack of confidence in judiciary–Sowore

The candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) in the 2019 and 2023 presidential elections, Omoyele Sowore explained why he did not approach the Presidential Election Tribunal to seek the nullification of President Bola Tinubu’s victory in a March interview.

The candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi and the parties had filed petitions challenging Tinubu’s victory at the tribunal.

However, in an interview with Arise News, Sowore said he had no confidence in the tribunal because the court had never delivered justice in election-related matters before.

He added that he didn’t see any difference between the PDP and the Labour Party and therefore distanced himself and his party from any alliance with the parties to approach the tribunal.

He said, “What you are saying regarding the Labour Party and the PDP is what people like us have always said that they are the same.

“We are not part of that coalition or alliance. And with regards to the court, when somebody steals your thing and you can retrieve it from him but he says no, go to court. You have to wait for the court to convene.

“But a court that gave you a governor that was fourth in Imo state is not likely to be a court that I will be heading to when I am cheated on this scale. The court that has not delivered justice to people like me since I was born in this country is not a court that I can tell you that I have implicit or explicit confidence in.

“If you go to court, you can almost determine what would be the outcome of the court.”

The activist also referenced how an election tribunal upheld the 2007 presidential election despite substantive evidence showing that the result was not credible.

He continued: “The courts in Nigeria have never nullified a presidential election. Even in 2007, when they conducted an election in which there were no serial numbers on the ballot papers, the court declared that you don’t need serial numbers and the person for whom the election was rigged by President Olusegun Obasanjo, that is Yar’Adua, came out and said this election was problematic. He accepted the booty regardless.

“So I do not think we are going to head to the court that may not be able or hasn’t delivered justice in similar matters for us.

“I think the reason they are asking these people to go to court is to calm the nerves of Nigerian people so that they accept this rubbish as a fait accompli.

“And they ensured that there were no uprisings on the streets to retrieve the stolen mandate of whatever fraudulent election they conducted.

“That is the reason they direct you to the courtroom because they know what the outcome would be. We also know how these courts are constituted by political parties in power. So we can’t be here deceiving ourselves.”

For five consecutive times Sowore has been contesting for the presidency he has not gotten up to 100,000 votes.