Presidential candidate of African Action Congress (AAC), Omoyele Sowore has said that President Bola Tinubu is on course to cause a revolution that will sweep him and ‘the owners’ of Nigeria away.
Speaking on Tuesday (today, October 1) during a protest at Freedom Park, Ojota, Lagos, Sowore said: “Tinubu is on course to ensure we have a revolution in Nigeria and that revolution will sweep away not just Tinubu but also ‘all the owners of Nigeria.’
“For the greatest Nigerian people, we are here today as a symbol of effort to protest, this is just one of the series of revolts in this country that will lead to the downfall of this regime of hardship that came, even before 2023. We have promised that in our lifetime, we will not tolerate slavery; we have promised that in our lifetime we will not continue to cohabit with corrupt people and that in our lifetime, we shall not be sentenced to minimum wage, when some people are earning maximum wage, and that in our lifetime we cannot be governed by the same people that our parents told us not to be like.
“When we were growing up, those were the drug dealers, the 419, and all the deceivers in this country. I am glad most importantly that I am reunited with my family members today, nobody thought we could do it in August, and when we did it in August for 10 days, in fact on the third day, they were cleaning Ojota, they said the protest was over, we came back after the cleaning.
“Today is October 1, and this is the beginning of our struggle to regain real independence; we want to get independence from our own internal colonizers, our brothers in Agbada, our brothers in police uniform, Army uniform, Customs uniform, Amotekun, all of them we want to save them as well because they need liberation as much as we all need liberation.
“I have never heard that the police have a different market where they buy foodstuffs, or whether they have a different filling station where they buy fuel, but, ladies and gentlemen, we are here to prove that resilience matters when we started in 2019, at the stadium,they beat us up, all over the country they arrested us, they detained me, striped me of my liberty. I was asked not to leave Abuja for three years, I stayed in Nigeria for five years, I told them from day one that one day “na them go tire” and now we have regained the consciousness of a lot more people and those who said I ran away in August, I am here in Lagos, and I am back fully.
“My own position is that any Nigerian or all Nigerians have the right to be anywhere they want and fight the struggle, and nobody should wait for anybody at the airport, if you wait for us at the airport, we would liberate ourselves at the airport, if you wait for us at the police station, we will liberate ourselves at the police station. if you use the DSS after us, we would liberate ourselves from the DSS. We are not going to accept any form of intimidation, harassment or oppression anymore and the revolution is on course. Those of you who came today and said this number is not what we expected, well just know that the number of people protesting in Nigeria are more than the people you are seeing here today. One day, I promise they will see a number that you cannot count, it has just started now and we are not going to stop, until we win.
“And I want to say one last thing, those of us who are doing this protest, we are the last licensed people in Nigeria. Very soon, a protest that has no definition will engulf the political class, people who have never known peace before and people you have never given peace or prosperity will show you what they call shege, the same shege that Tinubu is showing Nigerians now. They will soon get it, go and write today’s date down.
“I told Nigerians when Tinubu came to power that he is going to be the one who will cause revolution in Nigeria, and Tinubu is on course to ensure we have revolution in Nigeria and that revolution will sweep just not Tinubu alone, but will sweep all the owners of Nigeria away. Just say you heard it from me.”
However, Lagos State Commissioner of Police Ishola Olarenwaju, has described the protest in the State as peaceful. The CP who followed the protesters from Ikeja under Bridge to Ojota and was with the group till the demonstration was over,said: “Well,I am keeping the peace and as a police officer I am on duty 24/7 daily while I am still enjoying myself as a Nigerian, feeling happy and elated that we are celebrating the 64th Anniversary of Independence,so I am fine and I am okay.
“Well to give it to the protesters, they actually obeyed the law and they kept to the agreement we had and as you can see, they conducted the protest well as they didn’t allow anybody to infiltrate their ranks, while the police also kept their own side of the bargain to make sure that miscreants don’t infiltrate them and you can see it for yourself
“I came here with them ,there is no obstruction on the road.I trekked all the way to here with them,there is no obstruction on the way, at least i am physically on ground here.”
