Omoyele Sowore, the presidential candidate for the African Action Congress (AAC) in both the 2019 and 2023 presidential elections, has disclosed his reasons for not pursuing a legal challenge against President Bill Tinubu's election victory, unlike other opposition parties.

In his explanation, he expressed doubt that justice would be served by taking this course of action. Sowore cited a lack of confidence in the tribunal, asserting that the Nigerian courts had historically not delivered favorable outcomes in election-related cases. During an interview on Arise News, he pointed out that elections had never been annulled by the courts in Nigeria, which raised questions about why the flag bearers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, believed their cases would be an exception.

Sowore's comments came in response to the recent verdict of the presidential election petition tribunal, which upheld President Bola Tinubu's victory in the February 25 presidential elections. It's worth noting that both Atiku and Obi, along with their respective parties, had contested Tinubu's victory in court, but the tribunal dismissed their cases and affirmed Tinubu's win.

In his reaction, Sowore said, “What you are saying regarding the Labour Party and the PDP is what people like us have always said that they are the same.

“We are not part of that coalition or alliance. And with regards to the court, when somebody steals your thing, and you can retrieve it from him, but he says no, go to court. You have to wait for the court to convene.

“But a court that gave you a governor that was fourth in Imo state is not likely to be a court that I will be heading to when I am cheated on this scale. The court that has not delivered justice to people like me since I was born in this country is not a court that I can tell you that I have implicit or explicit confidence in.

“If you go to court, you can almost determine what would be the outcome of the court.”

Speaking further, the AAC flag bearer noted that opposition parties are constantly lured to go to court as a way to calm Nigerians.

He continued: “The courts in Nigeria have never nullified a presidential election. Even in 2007, when they conducted an election in which there were no serial numbers on the ballot papers, the court declared that you don’t need serial numbers, and the person for whom the election was rigged by President Olusegun Obasanjo, that is Yar’Adua, came out and said this election was problematic. He accepted the booty regardless.

“So I do not think we are going to head to the court that may not be able or hasn’t delivered justice in similar matters for us.

“I think the reason they are asking these people to go to court is to calm the nerves of Nigerian people so that they accept this rubbish as a fait accompli.

“And they ensured that there were no uprisings on the streets to retrieve the stolen mandate of whatever fraudulent election they conducted.

“That is the reason they direct you to the courtroom because they know what the outcome would be. We also know how these courts are constituted by political parties in power. So we can’t be here deceiving ourselves.”