…vows to go naked if their demands aren’t met
Aggrieved women under the auspices of ‘Angry Nigerian Women’ on Tuesday besieged the main road leading to the International Conference Centre (ICC) venue for the national collation of last Saturday’s presidential election.
The women numbering about 100 were marching to ICC to protest over what they called ‘rigged’ results of presidential election.
The placards and leave bearing women were stopped by heavy security operatives who manned the junction connecting the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) the National Defence (War) College and the ICC.
They threatened to go naked if they were not answered by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on why the presidential election polling units results have not been transmitted electronically to the INEC-resut viewing portal (iREV) as promised by the commission.
The angry Nigerian women who were singing songs such as ‘we no gree oo’, ‘Mahmood give us results ‘original results na im we want’ also carried placards with various inscriptions including, ‘INEC stop rigging’, ‘future of our children at stake’, ‘Mahmood give us our results’, ‘we are tired of injustice’, ‘occupy INEC now’.
No INEC official was on ground to address the protesting women, only a plain cloth security officer told women to leave the road and assured them that he will relay their message to the appropriate quarters for them to be addressed.
Speaking to correspondent, spokesperson of protesters, Oby Elekwe said they were angry that presidential election results were not transmitted via the iREV, alleging fraud.
Elekwe said they had been assured of being answered by INEC but failure to do that they will go naked in the same way all mothers do when giving birth to a child, including INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu.
“They have assured us that they will come and hear us. They have given us a promise and we have assured them that if they refuse to answer us we will speak in the language of mothers. Right on this spot, we are going to go naked. Enough is enough. We are tired.
“This is our demand, we will not compromise a new Nigeria because we know it is possible not only for the elites. Not only for Senators. Not only for the legislators. A new Nigeria for the masses. That’s all we are demanding for.
“This is group of angry Nigerian women who have come to take our nation by force. We have come to take it by force. We need them to answer us. Our anger is the result. We demand an iREV results. Electronically transmitted results, the ones Mahmood Yakubu promised us that mothers trooped out to cast their votes.
“He said from the polling units to wards to area councils to the states. So that’s what we demand. What we are getting is not what he promised and we are not ready to compromise this election. We will not take rigging for an answer. We need original result.
“We need results from the polling units. That is the only thing that will take us away from the road. The same way we go naked into labour room and gave birth to Mahmood Yakubu, the same way all these women you are looking at here will go naked on this road. It will happen today if they do not come and answer us,” she said.