Senator Ajibola Basiru, the National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, and Omoyele Sowore, the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, have traded words after the APC chieftain called the activist a “skit maker” and “comedian.”
The back-and-forth came after the AAC asked to inaugurate its presidential campaign council at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, which led Basiru to question Sowore’s political relevance.
The AAC made the request in a letter dated October 21, 2026, addressed to the President and signed by its National Secretary, Oshiokhai Ikpeminioghena.
In the letter, titled “Request for Approval to Hold the Inauguration of the AAC Presidential Campaign Council at the Presidential Villa and for Logistical Support,” the party also requested food, drinks, and other logistical support for participants at the proposed event scheduled for November 11, 2026.
In an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Wednesday, Basiru said that Sowore should first prove his electoral strength at the state level before he can expect to be taken seriously.
“Sowore is a skit maker. You know he’s my friend. All of us were in the trenches as a student union. He’s a skit maker. He knows that wouldn’t happen.
“Let him struggle to even get a seat in the House of Assembly as a politician, and then people will begin to take him seriously.
“He is even a top contender. When I see him, I would tell him that he’s just a comedian. He’s not serious about the presidential race,” Basiru said.
Sowore, responding to the remarks in a post on his X handle on Wednesday night, recalled his relationship with Basiru during their student activism days in the 1990s, when both opposed military dictatorship.
The presidential candidate said he watched the interview in which Basiru described him as a “skit maker” and “comedian.”
He accompanied his response with a photograph he said he took with Basiru in 1998, when he led the Congress of Progressive Youths.
“I am presenting here a photograph I took with Ajibola in 1998, when I led the Congress of Progressive Youths (COPY), and we were both in the trenches fighting against military dictatorship,” Sowore wrote.
He added that the eventual fate of COPY offered an early sign of Basiru’s political transformation, though he said he would hold back further comments on the matter.
Sowore also took issue with Basiru’s claim that the result of the 2023 presidential election should make opposition candidates ashamed of their defeat.
“His premise is that because Bola Ahmed Tinubu was declared ‘winner’ by INEC in the deeply flawed 2023 presidential election, those of us who contested against him should somehow be ashamed of losing,” he said.
The activist went on to recall that he assisted Basiru and Kunle Adegoke, widely known as K-Rad and now a senior advocate of Nigeria, and created a supportive environment that allowed them to secure admission to study law at the institution, following Basiru’s ordeal at the University of Ilorin in 1992 over student activism before he sought readmission to the University of Lagos.
According to him, both men ultimately graduated and later attained professional success.
In defense of his activism, Sowore argued that the fight for democracy and human rights should not be mistaken for entertainment.
He remarked, “The struggle for justice, democracy, freedom, and the preservation of human dignity is neither skit-making nor comedy.”
Sowore accused Basiru of turning his back on the principles they once stood for in opposing military rule and linked that shift to the privileges that come with his current political position.
“It is unfortunate that he has become so carried away by the fleeting privileges of his current political position that he now ridicules the very struggle that helped shape his own future,” he added.
He also stated that political appointments were temporary and that the Tinubu administration would eventually leave office.
“Political appointments are temporary. Tinubu’s regime will come and go, just like the military regimes we confronted in our youth,” Sowore said.
He stressed that the principles they fought for decades ago remained relevant, adding that his commitment to justice would outlast Basiru’s current position.
“The struggle for freedom is not comedy. What is truly comical is watching yesterday’s beneficiaries of resistance become today’s defenders of the very oppression they once fought against,” he said.
