Mr. Omoyele Sowore, the Presidential candidate and embattled National Chairman of the African Action Congress (AAC), on Monday vowed to challenge his Friday’s removal by a Federal High Court in Abuja as the party’s helmsman.
Sowore, who was addressing thousands of supporters and the media in a rally in Lagos, described his ouster as the AAC National Chairman as judicial recklessness and an attack on his party, which must not go unchallenged.
Sowore, Founder of the popular online medium, Sahara Reporters, also joined the members who held a solidarity march in parts of Ikeja, to denounce the court ruling against him and the AAC Vice Chairman, Malcolm Fabiyi.
He, however, lamented that rather than the court registrar releasing a copy of the court judgment to his lawyer to enable him file an appeal against the ruling immediately, the official said it would not be ready until October.
Sowore alleged that the ruling against him was the handiwork of the Federal Government, which he said might have connived with the judiciary to stop him from leading a revolution that would usher in a better Nigeria for the citizens, who he insisted had been languishing in poverty due to mis-governance.
He said that the AAC was rebranding, as could be seen in the red berets being adorned by the members, who had stormed Lagos from different parts of the country to solidarise with him, even as he described his party as a militant organization set up for the liberation of the Nigerian people.
Sowore said: “We have rebranded the party as a militant organisation to liberate Nigerians. We are a revolutionary minded party, the first of its kind in this part of Africa. We won’t allow them to stop us.
“Those who did not vote for us in the last elections are regretting. Government should stop fighting small people. They should stop fighting bread sellers. They should be fighting kidnappers,” Sowore said.
He lamented that it took the killing Mrs. Funke OLakurin, daughter of Pa Reuben Fasoranti, the Afenifere leader for President Muhammadu Buhari to dispatch Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to promise that the Federal Government would rescue the nation.
Sowore stated: “We went to Zamfara, Taraba, Katsina and told them that they would continue to be killed. The killings will continue. Let us liberate ourselves so that we will live.”
He maintained that under the current administration, the nation’s Judiciary had sold out, alleging that justice was being sold to the highest bidder adding, “Judges are members of the society. Justice will come when people seek for justice. If you have a case, you engage two lawyers, one who knows the law and the other, who knows the judge.”
Comrade Kunle Wiseman, the Lagos State Chairman of the party, in his speech, stated that the AAC members in Lagos and elsewhere knew no other leader than Sowore as the party’s National Chairman, and Malcom Fabiyi, as the Vice Chairman, adding that the members would remain loyal to the duo come rain, come shine.
He said the party and the members would have nothing to do with Leonard Nzenwa, who the court ruled was the party’s Acting Chairman, describing him as a usurper.
He said “The judgment is based, neither on logic, nor on merit, but on some technical jargons that are unfounded. We say that the judgment is an absolute and further decimation of the reputation of the judiciary. It is ‘cut and sow’ judgments like this that gives President Buhari and the APC the excuses to be attacking the judiciary indiscriminately.”
He maintained that if Nzenwa planned to lead a party, he should set up his own and leave AAC alone as the members would not have anything to do with him in the party, even as he reiterated that machinery had been set up for the party to appeal against the judgment.
On the future of the party, he said the AAC would align with like-minded political parties and groups in the avowed to liberate the Nigerian masses, even as he informed that a new body, Coalition For Revolution, was being formed with such parties as a part of Labour Party (LP), National Conscience Party (NCP), and few other radical parties, adding, “We are talking with other parties for the alliance.”
It would be recalled that a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, on Friday restrained Sowore, the AAC National Chairman and Presidential candidate in the 2019 presidential election to stop parading himself as the national leader of the party.
The presiding judge, Justice Inyang Ekwo, also ordered Malcolm Fabiyi, to stop parading himself as Deputy National Chairman.
In the order granted by the court, Sowore and Fabiyi were restrained from further exercising any power or function relating to the offices pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice.
