Sowore Publishes 2023 Campaign Expenses, Seeks Accountability

Omoyele Sowore’s presidential campaign organization, the African Action Congress (AAC) candidate in Nigeria’s recently concluded presidential election, has released the final breakdown of the 2023 presidential election campaign donations, sources of funding, and expenditure.

This comes as the Sowore Political Action Committee (SPAC) challenges other presidential candidates, including Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to release campaign financial statements.

According to a statement issued yesterday in Abuja by AAC’s national publicity secretary, Femi Adeyeye, this is in line with best campaign practices and the party’s spirit of accountability.

According to a published report, the Sowore campaign earned N157,884,936.98 and spent N157,805,799.40 in the 2019 election, leaving a closing balance of N79,137.28.

Adeyeye recalled that the committee provided monthly updates during the campaign, and this is not the first time a breakdown like this will be released.

He also stated that in 2019, the AAC candidate released a complete breakdown of campaign expenses, the first in the history of electioneering campaigns in Nigeria.

The statement reads in part:

The Sowore Presidential campaign organisation, then in a novel manner released detailed accounts of money received and spent, which was published on major dailies in the country.

Besides monetary contributions, we cannot quantify the human resources put into the campaign from Nigerians who supported us day and night. Those who stood their ground and gave their time to toe the path of honour and integrity, we cannot thank you all enough.

He said the organization also hopes that those in particular who sought public donations during the campaign season will also show Nigerians the donations they got from the campaign donors across Nigeria and beyond.

We can’t have a clean leadership recruitment process in this country with people who shroud their campaign spending in secrecy.

We believe that those who can’t keep books of campaign expenses and transparently account for the expenses incurred can’t run a country like Nigeria properly, the statement added.