Fake Opposition: Sowore explains how APC ‘controls’ PDP, LP, others

Omoyele Sowore, human rights activist and Publisher of Sahara Reporters, has alleged that all opposition parties in Nigeria are under the control of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), except his party, the African Action Congress (AAC).

Sowore said most of the opposition parties in the country were created by the APC for special purposes.

The activist, while speaking on Ribbin’ Minds, a talk show on Channels Television on Sunday, claimed the AAC, the party he founded in 2018, is the only opposition among the 18 registered political parties in the country.

According to him, some of the parties allegedly created by the APC to be used as special-purpose vehicles were usually funded for elections so they could help the ruling party with legal challenges.

“What we found out in our little research is that most of the parties that are left, apart from AAC, are parties that were created by the major parties. They call them feeder parties, or special purpose vehicles.

And what they do is that when they want to go into election, they will fund candidates in those other parties, so that sometimes some of the candidates or the parties are meant to help them with legal challenge. So they all go and challenge the election, and whomever has won would approach either the opposition party or the smaller parties and settle them, and everybody gets paid and walk away, and they will hang around,” Sowore claimed.

The activist also said he observed that each time political parties go to meetings with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the opposition parties don’t act like opposition, adding that they are not ideologically opposed to the ruling party.

“The people that oppose us the most when we go to meetings are these other smaller parties that you think are in the opposition,” he added.

Asked if his observations include the PDP and the LP, Sowore said, “Labour Party is the worst.”

According to him, the relationship between the APC and the LP is the reason some of the party’s members are defecting to the ruling party.

“The Labor Party, I would say, is the worst when we go to meetings with them. And that is why most of the Labor Party candidates now are moving to the APC. They’ve always been very excited about belonging to the (ruling party). In fact, that’s why I refer to the Labor Party as a short rental. Most of them that went to Labor Party saw an opportunity, they were coming from either PDP or APC. They walked in there, grabbed and then the moment they had the booty bag, they went back to where they’re coming from,” Sowore alleged.

He, however, reiterated the claim that the ruling party is institutionalising a one-party state, stressing that most of the opposition parties were created to give the impression that there’s opposition in the country.

VANGUARD.