Omoyele Sowore, the two-time presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), has alleged that the Student Loan initiative and Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway project launched by President Bola Tinubu’s administration were originally his ideas.
Sowore claimed that the ruling class has a habit of pilfering ideas from visionaries like himself, while those with no ideas are left in power, relegating innovators to the sidelines.
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Sowore revealed that his party had proposed grants of N100,000 per semester for Nigerian students, but the government modified the idea into a loan program. He also stated that he first proposed the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway project in 2018 during his presidential campaign, only for the government to adopt it without acknowledging his contribution.
The activist-turned-politician lamented that the lack of originality and reliance on borrowed ideas by the government is a testament to the country’s flawed political system, which prioritizes power over innovation and progress. Sowore’s claims have sparked a debate on intellectual property and the role of ideas in Nigeria’s political landscape.
“This student loan that they’re doing, we didn’t promise student loans, we promised grants. N100,000 was what we proposed per semester to Nigerian students, and people said it was impossible.
“When they (Tinubu’s government) took the idea, someone turned it into a loan.”
Sowore also recounted that he proposed the ongoing Lagos-Calabar coastal highway project in 2018 during his campaign for the presidential seat in 2019.
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He said, “This idea of a coastal highway was something I proposed in Badagry in 2018 when I went there to campaign that there would be a coastal highway from the border of Benin Republic to Calabar, and this would jumpstart the Nigerian Economy.
“And when they (Tinubu’s government) took it, they cut off the Badagry side and they made it a 47km highway that would help the provide a highway for a private real estate development in Eko Atlantic and that would join the Dangote Refinery to it.”
The human rights activist further noted that Tinubu’s government replicating their ideas resulted from people not paying attention to candidates who had ideas and glorifying the ruling class, which has no tenets of governance.
