Women, numbering about 100, under the auspices of ‘Angry Nigerian Women’ on Tuesday besieged the main road leading to the International Conference Centre (ICC) where the national collation centre for last Saturday’s presidential election is situated.
The women who carried leaves were protesting alleged rigging of the results of the presidential election and were intercepted by security operatives at the junction connecting the Central Bank of Nigeria, the National Defence (War) College and the ICC.
The protesters were chanting: ‘we no gree oo’, ‘Mahmood give us results ‘original results na im we want’ and they 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’.
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.
Spokesperson of protesters, Oby Elekwe said they were angry that INEC failed to electronically transmit results of the polls via the iREV as promised fraudulent reasons.
Elekwe said if not addressed by INEC, they will go naked in the same way all mothers do in labour room while giving birth to a child.
She said: “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.”
