APC National Secretary Senator Ajibola Basiru told Channels Television on Wednesday that rejected ballot papers in the 2023 presidential election received more votes than the African Action Congress, effectively dismissing its leader Omoyele Sowore as a comedian.
**What did Basiru claim?**
Basiru, speaking on the programme *Politics Today*, said the AAC’s vote total was lower than the number of invalid votes recorded by the [Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_National_Electoral_Commission). He added that Sowore should first win a seat in a state assembly before aspiring to the presidency, describing the activist‑candidate as a “skit maker” and “comedian.”
**Key statements from the interview**
- “Sowore is a skit maker. You know he’s my friend. All of us were in the trenches as student union leaders. He’s a skit maker. He knows that wouldn’t happen,” Basiru said.
- “Let him struggle to even get a seat in the House of Assembly as a politician, and then people will begin to take him seriously. Even rejected ballot papers had more votes than his party in the 2023 election. So that means that a rejected ballot paper is more popular than his party, so he’s just making skits.”
- “He is not even a top contender. When I see him, I will tell him that he’s just a comedian. He’s not serious about the presidential race.”
**Background to the clash**
The exchange followed a request by the [African Action Congress (AAC)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Action_Congress) to host the inauguration of its Presidential Campaign Council at the Presidential Villa in Abuja. In a letter dated 21 October 2026, AAC National Secretary Oshiokhai Ikpeminioghena asked the President for access to the Villa and for state‑funded logistics, including catering, for an event slated for 11 November 2026.
**Sowore’s response**
Reacting on his X account, Sowore posted a 1998 photograph of himself and Basiru together, recalling their joint student‑activist work against military rule in the 1990s. He rejected Basiru’s assessment, stating, “The struggle for justice, democracy, freedom, and the preservation of human dignity is neither skit‑making nor comedy.”
Sowore further accused Basiru of abandoning the principles they once fought for, citing the privileges of his current office. “His premise is that because [Bola Ahmed Tinubu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bola_Ahmed_Tinubu) was declared ‘winner’ by INEC in the deeply flawed 2023 presidential election, those of us who contested against him should somehow be ashamed of losing,” he said. “It is unfortunate that he has become so carried away by the fleeting privileges of his current political position that he now ridicules the very struggle that helped shape his own future.”
**Personal history between the two**
Sowore also revealed that he helped Basiru gain admission to study law at the University of Lagos after Basiru was rusticated from the University of Ilorin in 1992 for student‑union activities. He warned that political appointments are temporary, noting, “Tinubu’s regime will come and go, just like the military regimes we confronted in our youth. The struggle for freedom is not comedy. What is truly comical is watching yesterday’s beneficiaries of resistance become today’s defenders of the very oppression they once fought against.”