LAGOS, Nigeria – The presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, Omoyele Stephen Sowore, returned to Nigeria on Sunday following an extended working visit to the United States, announcing the immediate resumption of his nationwide grassroots campaign ahead of the 2027 presidential election, political correspondents reported in Lagos on Sunday afternoon, September 27, 2026.
The return concludes a foreign trip that reunited the human rights activist and publisher with his immediate family in the United States after a forced physical separation spanning more than 20 months, during which he was subjected to multiple security arrests, administrative detentions, domestic travel restrictions, and the seizure of his international passport by Nigerian state security agencies.
Okay News reports that in an official press release issued to journalists on Sunday morning, Sowore confirmed that his itinerary brings him through the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Ikeja, Lagos, before he proceeds directly to the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
While in Abuja, the AAC flagbearer is scheduled to continue attending court proceedings before the Federal High Court in connection with the cybercrime and public communication charges brought against him by the State Security Service in 2025.
During his stay in North America, Sowore engaged in a series of town hall consultations with Nigerian diaspora associations, civil rights groups, and labor unions, while participating in an international solidarity rally for civilian protection in Palestine held in New York City.
A central pillar of his foreign engagements focused on electoral reform, with Sowore mobilizing diaspora communities to demand statutory voting rights in Nigerian general elections, giving firm assurances that an AAC-led federal administration would prioritize and execute constitutional amendments to guarantee voting rights for millions of Nigerians residing abroad starting from 2027.
The AAC presidential candidate declared that his return to Nigerian soil signals the launch of an intensive, multi-sectoral campaign tour across the country’s six geopolitical zones, designed to build a popular civic coalition comprising trade unionists, student bodies, youth activists, peasant farmers, market women, and progressive professionals.
Sowore maintained that the upcoming 2027 presidential ballot must not be conducted as a routine transfer of authority among legacy political factions, but as a defining democratic turning point for citizens to dismantle systemic inequality and establish an accountable governance structure founded on social justice, human rights, and shared economic prosperity.
