2019: President Muhammadu Buhari Vs. Omoyele Sowore

Omoyele Sowore has demonstrated efforts to promote democracy in Nigeria for a long part of his life while President Muhammadu Buhari seized power to become a military head of state of Nigeria. Omoyele Sowore is eager to engage with the Nigerian people about affairs of the nation while President Muhammadu Buhari could not participate in a debate in order to address Nigerians towards his plans for governance during the 2015 elections.

Omoyele Sowore has demonstrated that he believes in technological advancement to power his news website, Sahara Reporters while President Buhari has not surrounded himself with people that will advance the use of technology in key sectors of governance -- For example, in the fight against corruption.

Omoyele Sowore's news website is run by a team while he engages in his daily affairs and now as a politician and he trusts those men and women to do a good job while President Buhari has been slow in making critical decisions partly due to him not trusting the decisions of those that work around him but just a few that share his worldview (a broad consensus leads to better decision making).

Omoyele Sowore had demonstrated a willingness to engage in scholarly work as he earned a graduate degree from Columbia University but President Buhari as an elder statesman, did not demonstrate enough scholarly work as a former military head of state and those experiences are needed to be documented and engaged upon in order to share best practices and lessons learned for better leadership across Nigeria and Africa. President Buhari has been sick for a part of his current Presidency while Omoyele Sowore is younger.

President Buhari has not set up and advanced enough institutions in order to tackle corruption in Nigeria but used the fight against corruption as a political tool towards his perceived enemies while Omoyele Sowore has demonstrated through his media organization, that he can build a venture and run an organization in an effective way. The skills of leading an organization, using technology and education to solve problems -- is what is needed in 21st century leadership. Nigerians, make a wise choice in 2019.

Omololu Omotosho was a Fellow with President Barack Obama's policy organization, Organizing for Action.