Human rights activist and AAC presidential candidate Omoyele Sowore has branded Nigeria’s Electoral Act “systematic disenfranchisement,” calling for electronic voting and grassroots political restructuring ahead of 2027.
Speaking Thursday on Eagle 102.5 FM’s _Frontline_ in Ilese Ijebu, Sowore said the current framework is “structurally flawed, burdensome, and deliberately designed to suppress voter participation.”
He argued the process hits rural voters and young people hardest. “A lot of people who register to vote don’t go back to collect their voter’s card because the process is too stressful,” he said. “Then you have to borrow money to travel back to your village. If you’re in Lagos you have to go to Anambra or Port Harcourt, risking road accidents or kidnapping or terrorist attacks. Most people will not go and vote.”
Sowore called that “their own systematic way of disenfranchisement of the majority.”
His fix: scrap the paperwork and let Nigerians vote with a NIN card plus one ID — passport or driver’s licence — from any polling unit. “This is 2026. We should be voting electronically. You don’t need to travel from Lagos to your village to go and vote,” he said.
He said the current Act reverses progress. “One of the most resisted electoral acts in recent history is this particular electoral act… It wasn’t designed to deliver free and fair elections. It was designed to stymie… Whatever progress they might have made in ensuring transparent elections had been totally destroyed.”
Sowore pointed to the removal of mandatory IReV uploads as proof. “The very little progress of sending election results to a portal had now become non-compulsory… they weren’t ready for the electoral act.”
He blamed lawmakers: “This is the problem when you elect people to represent you who have no capacity or the conscience or your mandate.”
Beyond tech, Sowore wants a political overhaul. He said voter apathy isn’t accidental but baked into an “elite-driven” system that locks out citizens. Real reform, he argued, needs new formations built from “grassroots mobilisation rather than elite alliances.”
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He rejected current opposition coalitions as “recycled arrangements” of ex-office holders. “A coalition that has Malami, Rufai, Amaechi, David Mark… they are very tired, they’re sick… When they had the opportunity to do so, they did nothing,” Sowore said. “You don’t need your oppressors to be in another coalition, because they can never save you.”
Instead, he called for a “coalition of the oppressed,” anchored on accountability and civic participation, outside traditional power blocs.
“Electoral credibility, voter inclusion, and political restructuring must be pursued simultaneously,” he said. “Until the country addresses the structural flaws in its electoral system, elections will continue to fall short of reflecting the true will of the people.”
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