The presidential candidate of African Action Congress, Omoyele Sowore said in an interview with Kike Atanda-Owo on Silverbird that he is willing to break down the grassroots system with technology.
“Technology is the most lucrative industry in the world today. It is not that we need technology, it is a must. Technology is so important as a bedrock of the future”.
He revealed that in years to come, Lagos traffic of today will become a thing of the past if the right decision to invest in technology is made.
“In the next six years, there would be approval of drone taxis; to travel to Lagos Island from Mainland, you call your drone taxi, having paid for your transportation, it will drop you off to where you are going. It will continue to improve that it will drop you off at your window. Everybody will have a drone pad at their houses and that is the future,” he said.
Speaking further, Sowore said it was unbelievable as at 30 years ago that a train could function without a pilot.
“Drones are smaller aircraft that have no pilot. It will be driven by artificial intelligence. It also eliminates traffic jams”.
He also said the cost of building another oil company is more than the cost of putting infrastructure for internet in place that can power the whole of the northern part of nigeria.
Addressing the question of ‘if his presidential ambition is a way of vengeance for the suffering he has gone through as a political activist’, he said “I have vengeance against poverty that must be waged. I have vengeance against our institutional lethargy that doesn’t respond to progress the way it should.
“I won’t deny entirely that I don’t have any intention of revenge. We must take revenge in a way that transforms our society.
“My kind of revenge is more of disruptive transformational leadership. Not a kind of revenge that can put people in jail”.
He said he has been in jail long enough to know that more people are not needed in prison.
“We don’t have enough space to put people in prison. The prison system should also be reformed to become transformational as opposed to being a process of revenge and vengeance from society against individuals,” he said.
Sowore said sometimes, some of the crimes people get punished for are crimes of passion, crimes relating to poverty.
He made an example of how a person was jailed in Osun State for stealing a phone belonging to a governor.
“I want to break down the grassroots system. People should be able to vote from home. I want to bring a future of technology and healthcare through telemedicine,” Sowore said.
