Abuja women protest election results

A women group under the auspices of ‘Angry Nigerian Women’ on Tuesday stormed the main road leading to the International Conference Centre venue for the national collation of the presidential election results over alleged irregularities.

The women numbering about 200 were marching to the ICC to protest what they called ‘rigged’ results but were stopped by heavy security officers at the junction connecting the Central Bank of Nigeria, National Defence (War) College and the ICC.

They threatened to go naked if the Independent National Electoral Commission did not accede to their demands on why the presidential election polling units results had not been transmitted electronically to the INEC-result viewing portal.

The angry 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’.

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No INEC official was on the ground to address the protesting women.

But a plain cloth security officer told them to leave the road and assured them that he would relay their message to the appropriate quarters for them to be addressed.

The spokesperson of the protesters, Oby Elekwe, said they were angry that the presidential election results were not transmitted via the IReV portal, alleging fraud.

She said they had been assured of being answered by INEC but failure to do that they would go naked in the same way all mothers do when giving birth to a child, including INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu.

Elekwe said, “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 a 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 result. 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.”