When Omoyele Sowore, the fiery publisher of Sahara Reporters, declared his intention not too long ago to contest for the exalted position of the president of Nigeria, not very many people took him seriously.
As the weeks roll by and the 2019 general elections inch closer, Sowore has shown that he did not mince words or merely blabbed when he said he was taking a shot at the presidency come 2019. He has continued to fan his presidential ambition and has already kick-started political campaigns to actualise his presidential bid.
The Sahara Reporters publisher’s daring move seems to have unsettled Adebayo Shittu, the Minister of Communication, who feels that Sowore’s ambition is too bogus and tall. This has pitched the duo against each other as they have locked horns in a war of words and engaged in a heated verbal exchange.
SHITTU: Sowore, what is your electoral worth, whether in Ife, your home-town, or any part of this country? You think presidency is for people like you? Go and start from being a councillor. I have been a member of the House of Assembly, I was Commissioner twice but you wouldn’t know; you were too small. How old are you? You want to become a president? Who will make you a president?
Sowore was to draw the first blood and fire the first salvo in the epic battle of words, when he addressed Shittu as a minister of an outgoing regime, stating that the Buhari administration would be kicked off power by 2019. Sowore said this apparently to prop up his presidential ambition and anger the rabidly pro-Buhari minister.
But Shittu is not a man to take things lying low, especially when such vociferous and sweeping statement was made against a government under which he is serving. He could not accommodate the fact that his principal could be so easily and casually dismissed. Shittu saw Sowore’s outburst as an affront and described the Sahara Reporters’ publisher as a dreamer.
Responding to Sowore’s submission that President Muhammadu Buhari would be booted out of the office come 2019, Shittu retorted, “By your wish or by God’s wish? You are just dreaming, you are a day-dreamer”
The communication minister further carpeted Sowore, stating that his electoral value and worth did not amount to anything. “Sowore, what is your electoral worth, whether in Ife, your home-town, or any part of this country?”
Shittu averred that Sowore was inconsequential in politics, hence he did not know much about his foray and exploits in politics. He described the Sahara Reporters’ publisher as a mere noise maker and attention seeker, and admonished him to learn the political ropes before jumping unto the big stage.
“You think presidency is for people like you? Go and start from being a councillor. I have been a member of the House of Assembly, I was Commissioner twice but you wouldn’t know; you were too small. How old are you? You want to become a president? Who will make you a president? You think presidency is something you can just buy in a market place?”
But apparently determined not to be outshone in the fiery darts of steaming hot verbal exchange, Sowore said when he posited that President Buhari would be kicked out of office come 2019, he wasn’t dreaming but was expressing the wish and sincere desire of the Nigerian people, adding that this was a realisation that the minister would wake up to meet come February 15, 2019.
The Sahara Reporters’ publisher submitted that he had a worthy electoral value and stressed, “It was my electoral worth that brought the minister and many key officials in government today into power, as many of them were unknown prior to 2014. I am consequential and important in politics because you, the minister, came to power on my back and on the back of young Nigerians who invested a lot of hope in the Nigerian dream.”
SOWORE: It was my electoral worth that brought the minister and many key officials in government today into power, as many of them were unknown prior to 2014. I am consequential and important in politics because you, the minister, came to power on my back and on the back of young Nigerians who invested a lot of hope in the Nigerian dream.”
Sowore berated the communication minister for what he described as his apparent thoughtlessness in speech, adding that it was the same manner former President Goodluck Jonathan’s handlers exhibited arrogance before his government was sacked in 2015. “You will be shocked in 2019,” Sowore effused.
Countering the minister’s position that he was too small and young to know anything about Nigeria’s politics, the 47 years old publisher also said that he had built a reputable media platform whose reportage helped bring the present administration to power.
Sowore further argued that the Nigeria of the future belongs to dreamers like him and harped that it was time the youth veer to politics and take up power, because, according to him, the youths were responsible for it.
