In protest of suspected anomalies, a women’s organization operating under the banner of “Angry Nigerian Women” stormed the major road leading to the International Conference Centre, the location of the national collation of the presidential election results, on Tuesday.
Over 200 women marched to the ICC to protest what they dubbed “rigged” results, but they were stopped by heavily armed security personnel at the intersection of the ICC, National Defence (War) College, and the Central Bank of Nigeria.
If the Independent National Election Commission did not comply with their demands over why the presidential election polling unit results had not been electronically transmitted to the INEC-result viewing page, they threatened to go nude.
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’.
To address the angry women, there was no INEC representative present.
Nevertheless, a security guard in plain clothes ordered them to cross the street and gave them the assurance that he would deliver their message to the proper people.
The demonstrators, according to their spokesperson Oby Elekwe, were upset that the IReV portal did not get the results of the presidential election because they believed there had been fraud.
She claimed INEC had promised to respond, but if they didn’t, Mahmood Yakubu, the head of INEC, and all other moms would have to give birth in the same way—naked.
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.”
