Omoyele Sowore, a human rights activist and publisher of Sahara Reporters, formally declared his candidacy for president on Tuesday.
Mr. Sowore has joined the expanding list of contenders for President Muhammadu Buhari’s 2023 re-election.
This will be the activist’s second run for the position. In the 2019 presidential election, he ran as a candidate for the African Action Congress (AAC).
Mr. Sowore posted a banner on his social media accounts on Tuesday with the slogan “SOWORE FOR PRESIDENT.”
Although he did not provide much specifics about his aspiration on the shared banner, the former AAC presidential candidate swore not to back down on his quest to lead Nigeria after his release from police incarceration in Abuja on Thursday.
He said that the APC-led government backed a petition brought against him by a former member of the House of Representatives, Ned Nwoko, and his subsequent imprisonment to prevent him from making his declaration.
“I knew this is what’s going to happen and I’m not surprised that that’s what they did. But when we got here, I made it clear to everybody, all of the police officers involved, that I can’t write any statement and I won’t accept any kind of bail condition attached to my release,” he had said.
“They took me to their detention. When they were tired; they came and called to tell me that I should be going home. So I’m heading home now. No reason to worry, we know why this is happening. They are afraid of the future. They are afraid Sowore will declare very soon and become the president of Nigeria; you can’t stop me,” the activist was quoted to have said by his newspaper after his release on Thursday.
Mr Sowore finished fifth in the 2019 election with 33,953 votes, ahead of other newcomers such as Fela Durotoye of the Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN) and Kingsley Moghalu of the Young Democratic Party (YPP).
After leading a statewide demonstration dubbed RevolutionNow, he was detained by the State Security Service (SSS) in August 2019 for alleged treason.
