The African Action Congress has inaugurated its Presidential Campaign Council for the 2027 general election, unveiling a nationwide structure that will coordinate the re-election bid of its presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, and his running mate, Haruna Garba Magashi, across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
The party announced the inauguration in a statement signed by its Acting National Chairman, Samuel Ajeigbe, and National Secretary, Oshiokhue Ikpeminoghena. The council will be led by Abdullahi Usman as Director-General, supported by deputies in charge of Strategy and Political Affairs, and Diaspora and Resource Mobilisation. Juwon Sanyaolu will serve as Campaign Council Secretary.
According to the statement, ten national directorates have been established to oversee key campaign functions, including strategy and policy, grassroots mobilisation, labour and civil society engagement, publicity and communications, digital media, data and technology, election operations, finance, legal and compliance, and administration and field operations. At the grassroots level, the campaign structure will extend through state, local government, ward and polling-unit coordinators, with a network of volunteers, canvassers, polling agents and supporters.
The AAC described the inauguration as the beginning of an intensified nationwide mobilisation, stating that the 2027 election is not merely about changing the occupant of Aso Rock but about changing the political direction of Nigeria. “As the old political order continues to fail Nigerians, the AAC is taking its message directly to the people, from the cities to the rural communities, from state capitals to the polling units,” the statement said.
The party also acknowledged the role of the SOWORENOW application, a digital platform launched in July 2026 to coordinate supporters and manage campaign activities. The app includes campaign news, official statements, rally notifications, volunteer coordination and election-related tools such as the ability to report electoral malpractice and register as polling unit agents. The party said the newly inaugurated council is not a replacement for its digital mobilisation infrastructure but is designed to upscale, deepen and expand it. “The Council will combine the power of technology with physical grassroots organisation, political coordination and community-level mobilisation to ensure that the Sowore-Magashi campaign reaches Nigerians in every part of the country,” the statement read.
Sowore, a human rights activist and publisher of Sahara Reporters, was adopted as the party’s consensus presidential candidate at its primary in May 2026. He subsequently stepped down as the party’s national chairman, with Samuel Ajeigbe assuming the position. This marks Sowore’s third consecutive presidential run on the AAC platform. In the 2019 presidential election, he polled 33,953 votes to finish fifth overall. In 2023, he secured 14,608 votes, a decline of 57 per cent from his previous outing. The AAC itself was established in 2018, making it one of the newer political parties in a landscape that now has 21 registered parties following the addition of the Democratic Leadership Alliance and the National Democratic Congress in February 2026.
The scale of the challenge facing the AAC is significant. The Independent National Electoral Commission has disclosed that the national register of voters now stands at 103,428,715 ahead of the 2027 general elections. Lagos State leads with 7,488,633 registered voters, followed by Kano with 6,570,276, Kaduna with 4,662,640, Katsina with 3,876,055 and Rivers with 3,736,434. The register is dominated by voters aged 35 to 49 years, who account for 43,265,946 or 41.83 per cent of the total. Voters aged 18 to 34 years number 29,777,576, representing 28.79 per cent, while those aged 50 to 69 account for 22,982,900 or 22.22 per cent. Male voters account for 53,528,218 or 51.75 per cent, while female voters number 49,900,497 or 48.25 per cent.
Sowore’s campaign messaging has focused heavily on the economic hardship facing millions of Nigerians. He has promised to introduce a N500,000 monthly living minimum wage for Nigerian workers if elected, alongside a commitment to 24-hour electricity supply. The current national minimum wage is N70,000. Market surveys and private-sector research indicate that a family of four now requires between N349,000 and N513,000 monthly to meet basic living costs. Once rent and school fees are included, that figure rises to between N605,000 and N731,000, meaning the minimum wage covers only a fraction of what an average household needs to survive.
The broader economic context is stark. The World Bank estimates that just over half of Nigeria’s population were in poverty in 2025, up from roughly 42 per cent in 2022. Headline inflation stood at 15.39 per cent in August 2026, down from 23.14 per cent in August 2025, while food inflation was 19.57 per cent, against 25.30 per cent a year earlier. Petrol prices remain six times higher than they were before the subsidy removal in May 2023. A June 2026 voter sentiment tracker by SBM Intelligence showed that 80 per cent of Nigerians believe the country is moving in the wrong direction.
Sowore has also made clear that the AAC will not be joining any coalition with other opposition parties. Speaking after his adoption as the party’s candidate, he said the AAC is “the only opposition party” that stands as an alternative for Nigerians, describing it as a “coalition for revolutionary change.” He has dismissed suggestions of a merger or alliance with other parties, insisting that genuine political strength lies with grassroots supporters rather than elite political arrangements. The party has also reaffirmed its position amid an arrest order issued against Sowore in June 2026, with the AAC declaring that persecution will not stop his 2027 ambition.
The 2027 presidential election is scheduled for January 16, 2027, with the governorship and state House of Assembly elections set for February 6, 2027. Eighteen presidential candidates from eighteen political parties have been cleared by INEC to contest. Among them are President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the African Democratic Congress, and former Anambra State Governor Peter Obi of the National Democratic Congress. Sowore is the AAC’s flag bearer.
Voter turnout will be a critical factor. The 2023 presidential election recorded a turnout of 26.71 per cent, down from 34.75 per cent in 2019. Out of 93.47 million registered voters, only 24.97 million cast ballots. The 2027 election will be the first general election conducted under the new INEC chairman, Professor Joash Amupitan, who was appointed in October 2025. INEC has proposed a budget of N873.78 billion for the conduct of the 2027 general elections, with N375.75 billion allocated to election operations, N209.21 billion to election technology and N154.90 billion to capital costs. The Senate Committee on Electoral Matters has recommended an additional N30 billion allocation, which would bring the total to N903.78 billion.
For the AAC, the challenge is translating its digital mobilisation and grassroots structure into actual votes. The party’s 2023 performance of 14,608 votes represented 0.06 per cent of the total valid votes cast. The SOWORENOW app, with its features for volunteer coordination, rally notifications and electoral malpractice reporting, is central to the campaign’s strategy of reaching voters directly, bypassing traditional political gatekeepers. Whether that strategy can meaningfully shift the electoral needle in a country where the two major parties have dominated since 1999 remains to be seen. What is clear is that the AAC is positioning itself as a distinct alternative, and the coming months will test whether that message resonates beyond its existing support base.