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Presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), Omoyele Sowore, has said his struggle for democracy helped create the political environment that enabled former Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, to rise to power.
Sowore made the claim while reflecting on his heated exchange with Amaechi at the Nigerian Bar Association’s Annual General Conference in Port Harcourt on Monday.
Speaking in an interview with Arise News on Tuesday, Sowore said he asked Amaechi to apologise following their confrontation, but the former governor instead invited him to his residence for a drink.
“That’s why I said to him after the event, I called him and said, you should have apologised to me, and he asked me to come over to his house to eat and drink a beer.
“And I said, no, I don’t want you to poison me, because I know you’re not happy. I don’t think he would do that. No, I mean, I’m just kidding,” he said.
Sowore argued that his political experience should not be measured solely by whether he had previously occupied a public office, stressing that his years of activism constituted another form of leadership experience.
“If I didn’t fight for democracy, Rotimi Amaechi would not be standing there yesterday if we were still under military rule.
“He would never have been a speaker of the House for eight years, governor for eight years, minister for eight years. That’s one of the guys who benefited from my extraordinary struggle for democracy,” Sowore said.
The AAC candidate said his experience was built around his commitment to democracy and good governance, arguing that effective leadership required vision, purpose and the ability to bring people together to achieve results.
“When people are looking for leaders, they are not looking for an accountant alone, they’re looking for someone who understands a little bit of everything. And who can find everybody who can make things work. That’s what leadership is all about,” he said.
Sowore had challenged the records of politicians at the NBA conference, particularly criticising Amaechi’s tenure as Rivers governor and his time as Minister of Transportation.
He also faulted Amaechi’s role in the country’s transportation policy and used the railway projects delivered during his tenure to question the impact of his administration.
“We have a former governor of Rivers state here, Amaechi, who built a rail line that went nowhere. If that rail line was working subsidy would have been working for Rivers people,” Sowore said.
Amaechi, who is the vice-presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, defended his record, citing roads and primary schools delivered during his tenure as governor, as well as the Lagos-Ibadan and Abuja-Kaduna railway projects executed while he was Transportation Minister.
The exchange became heated when Amaechi told Sowore, “When politicians are talking, close your mouth.”
Sowore maintained that the confrontation had not altered his position on fuel subsidy, saying he had warned against its removal before the Federal Government implemented the policy.
“As a matter of fact, most of the ideas you are seeing that they are picking now, we started fighting for it. We have clearly articulated them. We told them, remove our subsidy, we’ll ruin the economy,” he said.
He further took aim at Amaechi, saying the former governor was not an “Excellency” because, in his assessment, he had not done anything excellent for Nigeria.
Sowore and Amaechi’s exchange came as political figures at the NBA conference, including Peter Obi and Adewole Adebayo, debated governance, insecurity, fuel subsidy and Nigeria’s political direction ahead of the 2027 general elections.
