Perhaps the biggest criticism against the AAC is that Sowore remains the party national chairperson. Many have suggested that it is better for the party to even put a stooge as chairperson who would take all instructions from Sowore just to appear on paper that there is a change of leadership. This is understandable. Ours is a society where even state governors are stooges to godfathers. It is normalised. We prefer pretended democracy to actual democracy. So it is difficult to blame young people(or even old people) who subscribe to this kind of idea.
But ours is a direct and open democracy. We don’t do de facto or dictatorship from behind in our party (AAC) like the reference above. We don’t do bàbá sọpẹ́ (godfather said) in our party. We rather have it known publicly that these are those in charge. It is also instructive to know that Sowore or any other member of the leadership don’t take unilateral decision. Their decisions are generated from the congress from below. Sowore, cannot and will not do anything without the approval of the National Working Committee (NWC) which draws her power from state congresses.
But why Sowore and not someone else? Our party is still very young. So we are still in a building process and developing trusted and capable people to hold the leadership position.
A check on the list of newly inaugurated executives will show you that we have very young, committed and vibrant youth managing our party.
We rather have Sowore, who is committed, reliable and also capable (including financially) to be the popularly elected leader of the party than put a stooge like conventional party leaders would do. What we do is true democracy.
We are still stabilising and we cannot entrust just anyhow people. The last time we tried it, the bigger politicians who are dictators tried to use the person to hijack the party like they hijacked PDP, LP and the rest. We battled this in court for a few years especially at a time when Sowore was in prison and/or restricted to Abuja by the Buhari/APC regime while they were trying to hijack the party using Leonard Ezenwa, the then National Secretary. The rest is history (which some of us have written and would commit to write about).
Party administration requires time and money. The kind that only committed members who are financially capable can handle. We don’t have public officials in our party who can use government funds to finance our party. We rely heavily on members’ dues and donations which is minimal. Sowore is best fit at the moment because he has the capacity and availability. Our party leaders are not paid. We don’t have such money. Their roles are voluntary.
Our members are largely young patriotic people who are members because they believe in a better Nigeria. They are youths and average people struggling for financial survivals in this economy. National chairmanship of a party requires a lot of time and financial resources. A struggling young person like me can’t provide such.
We also do not have money bags business wo/men in our party. The kind that donate to APC/PDP/LP and co. Because they know we can’t offer contracts or any underground dealings. Take for example, the reason Sowore is readily available on behalf of the AAC party to intervene in national issues and secure the freedom of many Nigerians illegally oppressed across the 36 states of the federations and FCT is because he can manage to cover the mobility expenses and sacrifice the time. An average member of the party can’t do this. We are barely struggling, like the ordinary Nigerian to get daily food while working 24/7. In your usual APC/PDP/LP etc, you have party leaders sitting on billions provided from public purse and all. We don’t have such in our party and will not. We are committed to sustaining the party primarily on internal funds from dues and donations from members.
We believe indeed in true democracy and building leaders from within that will takeover. Until then, we continue to revolve it democratically among the popular consensus choice of the members. That is what distinguishes us from the party and leaders who pretend through their de facto officials.
If you think this is not the best yet, you are correct. We know we can do very much better. That is why we are calling on all meaningful Nigerians like you, questioning the limited human resources of AAC, to come into the AAC and volunteer in leadership capacity. This is not where we want to be. It is the road that lead to where we will be. With critically honest minds like yours, we can build a stronger party with multiple leadership options required to win for a transformed Nigeria.
Onward to the socialist revolution!
Soneye LAS
A member of the African Action Congress (AAC)
soneyeabdazeezl@gmail.com