The Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) presidential candidate, Donald Duke, has expressed uncertainty over whether Omoyele Sowore, the African Action Congress (AAC) candidate, intends to contest the 2027 general election.
According to Duke, the activist as a “voice of conscience.”
Duke made the comment during an interview on the Naija Unfiltered Podcast while discussing efforts by opposition politicians and groups to build a united platform ahead of the 2027 presidential election.
Duke said he had a positive view of Sowore but suggested that the AAC candidate occupies a different space in Nigerian politics because of his outspoken approach to political and national issues.
“Let me talk about Sowore. I like him. I’m not sure Sowore is running for office, with due respect to him, but I see him as a voice of conscience,” Duke said.
“He says things that some of us, maybe due to civility, won’t say, but they’re real.”
Duke’s comments come amid renewed efforts by opposition figures and organisations to explore cooperation ahead of the 2027 election.
The Movement for Credible Elections (MCE), through a political commission led by Professor Pat Utomi, has been consulting opposition presidential candidates and party leaders on the possibility of producing a single candidate to challenge President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The commission has said its discussions are intended to go beyond simply asking candidates to step down, with the process expected to involve negotiations on how a consensus candidate would be selected and endorsed. The proposed arrangement also includes the development of a common governance programme covering issues such as insecurity, unemployment, poverty, electoral reform, constitutional reform, education, healthcare, energy and the cost of governance.
Duke, however, argued that any opposition alliance should be built around an agreed vision for Nigeria rather than being formed solely to defeat the incumbent.
“It’s unfortunate that the two other candidates, Vice President Atiku Abubakar and Governor Peter Obi, stayed away,” he said.
He said discussions among opposition stakeholders were continuing and expressed hope that the different groups would eventually reach an understanding on how to work together.
Duke said the opposition needed to first establish what it wanted to accomplish for the country before determining which individual should emerge as its candidate.
“If it’s coming together just for the sake of defeating the incumbent, then I think it’s a waste of time. We must have a central objective about where we’d like to take Nigeria to, and who is best suited to do that,” he said.
The PRP candidate also advocated a longer-term restructuring of the opposition, arguing that the number of competing political parties could make it difficult for opposition forces to mount a coordinated challenge under Nigeria’s presidential system.
“I think the long-term objective is to merge the opposition. You can’t have a fractured opposition in a presidential system,” Duke said.
He further called for a political arrangement in which different interests could participate rather than a system where control of government is treated as an all-or-nothing contest.
“I hear we have about 18 presidential candidates. They should all come together. There’s enough in Nigeria for all of us, and this winner-takes-all syndrome must end. That’s what we’re hoping for,” he said.
Duke has previously spoken in favour of opposition cooperation ahead of the 2027 election. In an earlier appearance on Naija Unfiltered, he said opposition groups risked weakening themselves through factionalisation and argued that they needed to work together.
However, Sowore has publicly rejected the current coalition initiative. The AAC presidential candidate said neither he nor his party was participating in the Utomi-led discussions and that the party would not join the proposed single-candidate coalition.
Sowore said the AAC had a different political and ideological programme from the parties and politicians involved in the coalition discussions.
“I have read a report stating that a Political Commission led by Prof. Pat Utomi intends to hold talks with several presidential candidates, including myself, with the objective of producing a single opposition presidential candidate for the 2027 election.
“For the avoidance of doubt, neither I nor the African Action Congress is part of these talks, and we will not be joining any such coalition,” Sowore said.
He also said the AAC’s opposition was not limited to Tinubu or the APC but extended to what he described as the wider political system and governing practices responsible for Nigeria’s longstanding challenges.
“Our opposition is not merely to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu or the evil All Progressives Congress party. It is to the political system and governing practices that have produced decades of poverty, corruption, inequality, insecurity and underdevelopment,” he stated.
Sowore said his party would instead pursue what he described as a “revolutionary break from the old order”, centred on social and economic justice, equal rights, accountable government and the redistribution of political and economic power.
“We will not abandon that program for an arrangement whose principal objective is simply to replace one set of establishment politicians with another,” he added.
