Omoyele Sowore, presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, has defended his party’s request to inaugurate its campaign council at the Presidential Villa, insisting that opposition parties are entitled to the same access the ruling All Progressives Congress enjoys. He spoke on Thursday at an event organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, a day after his party’s letter to President Bola Tinubu became public. The request has since drawn a sharp exchange with the APC National Secretary, Senator Ajibola Basiru.
“We asked to use Aso Rock because the APC uses Aso Rock to do political party events,” Sowore said. “So we are saying, as a matter of right, since Aso Rock is our own, other political parties must be granted the opportunity to use Aso Rock the way APC uses Aso Rock.”
The letter, dated October 21 and signed by the AAC National Secretary, Oshiokhue Philip Ikpeminoghena, asked for approval to hold the inauguration at the Villa on November 11, 2026. The party also asked the government to provide food, drinks and other logistics for 5,000 participants from within Nigeria and abroad. It said the request was rooted in multiparty democracy and equal treatment of political parties, and asked the Presidency to state the procedures and conditions for approval.
The AAC pointed to a recent precedent. On October 14, President Tinubu inaugurated the APC Presidential Campaign Council at the State House Conference Centre in Abuja, urging members to work for his re-election. The party argued that granting its own request would show that public institutions serve all Nigerians “without partisan discrimination”. The Presidency has not publicly responded to the letter.
Basiru dismissed the request on Channels Television’s Politics Today, calling Sowore a “skit maker” and a “comedian”. He said the AAC candidate should first win a seat in a state House of Assembly before expecting to be taken seriously. He also claimed that rejected ballot papers polled more votes than the AAC in the 2023 presidential election.
The official results support Basiru’s comparison. According to the figures declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission, Sowore polled 14,608 votes in the February 25, 2023 election, while 939,278 ballots were rejected. That means rejected votes outnumbered the AAC’s tally by about 64 to one. Sowore’s share of the 24,025,940 valid votes was roughly 0.06 per cent, against the 8,794,726 votes that gave Tinubu victory. In 2019, his first presidential outing on the AAC platform, Sowore polled 33,953 votes.
Sowore replied on X with a 1998 photograph of himself and Basiru during their student activism against military rule. He wrote that the struggle for justice and democracy was “neither skit-making nor comedy”, accusing his former comrade of abandoning the principles they once defended together. At the ICAN event, he also described the hardship facing Nigerians. “They have brought sorrow, and honestly, things are hard for the people of this country,” he said.
The Sahara Reporters publisher used the same occasion to rule out joining the Rainbow Coalition associated with the Federal Capital Territory Minister, Nyesom Wike, which is mobilising support for Tinubu’s re-election. He said his Villa request should not be read as a move towards the President’s camp. “I don’t want to be part of your coalition because your rainbow coalition is going to die after 2027,” Sowore said.
Beneath the political sparring lies a long running question about state resources in elections. Section 95(2) of the Electoral Act 2022, which governed the last general election, provided that state apparatus, including the media, must not be used to the advantage or disadvantage of any party or candidate. The same rule appeared as Section 100(2) of the Electoral Act 2010. INEC’s Code of Conduct for Political Parties also requires parties to separate party business from government business and bars the use of public resources for electioneering.
The 2027 contest is now governed by the Electoral Act 2026, signed by Tinubu in February. Under INEC’s revised timetable, presidential campaigns began on August 19, 2026, and the presidential and National Assembly elections will hold on January 16, 2027. The AAC’s proposed November 11 date falls about nine weeks before polling day.
Whether the Presidency grants, rejects or ignores the request, the AAC says it awaits a formal reply. The APC, through Basiru, has so far treated the letter as a stunt rather than a serious application. Sowore maintains that the matter is one of principle and equal access to a public building.