by Tony Ademiluyi
Comrade Omoyele Sowore cut his activism teeth at barely twelve years old. Multinationals spilled crude oil in the waters of Ondo State which negatively affected the livelihood of his fisherman father. But for the free education instituted by the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, he may have dropped out of school and followed his father’s fisherman footsteps.
He participated in a rally calling for the multinational to clean up the waters. He persisted when he got admitted to study Geography and Regional Planning at the University of Lagos. He participated in the anti-structural adjustment programme riots in 1989 at barely 18 years old.
As the Unilag Student Union President in 1993, he spearheaded the June 12 1993 de-annulment struggle at just 22 and resisted the lure of dirty money to support the military.
He was expelled from Unilag twice and till date his National Youth Service Discharge Certificate has been withheld from him.
When democracy returned in 1999, he visited the United States of America for a human rights conference and some of the attendees persuaded him to stay back to attend to some health issues he encountered while fighting for a better Nigeria.
He is extremely incorruptible. He had all the opportunities to hurriedly return home and join partisan politics and soil his hands with easy money but he stood firm in his principles for good governance in the best interest of Nigerians.
While in Uncle Sam, he improved himself educationally by returning back to school for his Masters Degree in Public Administration at the Ivy League Columbia in New York. Thereafter he worked for some charities in New York and New Jersey.
In 2006, he took advantage of the liberalization of the internet and media by setting up an anti-corruption and pro-human rights online platform – Sahara Reporters.
Sahara Reporters which will be twenty years old this year has done its bit to fight corruption and is the nemesis of corrupt politicians in the country. Despite being headquartered in New York, it digs out scoops that the Nigerian traditional media fail to touch due to the fear of adverts withdrawal from the government which constitutes the mainstay of their revenue.
He is no Safety First Radical and he took up the gauntlet in returning back to Nigeria shortly before the 2019 elections to contest the Presidency of Nigeria.
Many of his critics dismissed his bid telling him to start from the grassroots as either a local government chairman or Governor of Ondo State where he hails from.
He fired back opining that the then US President Donald Trump had no political experience and his experience as a lifelong anti-corruption advocate and human rights activist stood him in good stead for the nation’s plum job.
He transversed around the country selling himself and manifesto to the hapless and battered electorate that the then Muhammadu Buhari led administration had so impoverished.
Unfortunately, he lost the elections and still re-contested in 2023 but lost again. The reasons for his loss are primarily because Nigerians are not really ready for change especially from radicals who are ready to put their lives on the line for a better nation.
According to Professor Chinua Achebe in his treatise ‘The trouble with Nigeria,’ the failure of Nigeria rests squarely on leadership. Singapore wouldn’t have emerged as a first world nation without the leadership of Lee Kuan Yew. Mao Tse Tung set the tone for the current great leap of China.
In the build up to the 2027 elections, the Nigerian electorate should critically rethink her choices and break away from electing failed career politicians in a favour of a hungry revolutionary which Sowore represents.
I believe in the revolution that he has been calling for as that is the only way Nigeria can go to the eldorado.
Up Omoyele Sowore!
Tony Ademiluyi is a Lagos based journalist and writer.