Youth group and the women’s wing of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ondo State on Monday stormed the major streets of Akure to protest the list of candidates ratified by the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party for the National Assembly election next year.
Clad in white attire, the women who marched from the popular Oba market through Ilesa motor park to Oloko junction blocked the Akure-Ilesa expressway, preventing the free flow of traffic for some hours.
Armed with different placards, the women said they would not accept the imposition of candidates on the party by the NWC.
Some of the placards read ” We Reject Abuja List”, “We Stand by Ondo State Congress Results“, ” We Say No to Imposition” and “Ondo State on Fire”
The NWC of the APC has given automatic tickets to six out of nine members of the House of Representatives and two serving senators in the state, prompting the protest in the state.
The protesters, led by the Commissioner for Women Affairs, Dr Seun Osamaye, APC Women Leader, Princess Oluwayemisi Iji-Ayeola, and Ojo Bright, said the APC primaries, which were held in various constituencies in the state, were peaceful and the results from those primaries must be upheld by the leadership of the party at the national level.
Speaking with reporters, Osamaye said the women who are members of the APC rejected the names released by the NWC of the party despite the outcome of the primaries, which were known to all the citizens of the state.
Her words: ” We have come out to express our displeasure with the fake list being circulated. We consider it fake because it does not reflect the mandate of the people. It does not reflect the votes counted across the 203 wards of Ondo State. We know those we voted for.
“We know those we counted that won the elections. So why does the list being circulated online not reflect the people’s mandate? That is the question we have come to ask this afternoon. It is a peaceful protest. We say no to the mago-mago appeal. We say no to fake appeal.
“We say no to corner-corner appeal. People’s votes should count. We voted massively for our candidates, and it should reflect in the list that has been pasted. But what we are seeing online does not reflect what we voted for, and that is why we have come today.
“We know President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a president for women. We know he is a man who listens, a man of fair judgment, integrity, fairness and justice. So what we are saying is: let the people’s votes matter. Let our votes count.
“We say no to mago-mago appeal and corner-corner appeal. We voted across the 203 wards, and what was posted online does not reflect our mandate. That is why, as women of the APC in Ondo State, we have come out to express our concern that this injustice should not stand. It is against the spirit of fairness, transparency, and voting. People’s votes are meant to matter and count.
“We don’t want to accept that our demands will not be met. Today’s date was written on the list that was circulated, so we are saying that what was pasted is very wrong. The APC National said its decision was based on an appeal, so they should make everything transparent.
“Let us know which appeal, which mago-mago and corner-corner appeal, does not reflect the people’s will. We are demanding justice. We are demanding fairness. We are demanding equity. That is what we are saying as women of the APC in Ondo State.”
Ojo, in his remarks, said the mandate of the people was about to be truncated by some leaders of the party who did not wish the best for the party in the state. He said it would be wrong for the party to release results more than a month after its conduct.
He said: “Like the NADECO struggle, when the democratic process was about to be truncated in our country, some people rose to demand that democracy must not become one man’s show or one man’s business.
“Today, what you are seeing here is an end to a democratic coup in Ondo State. The democratic coup is that the people of Ondo State, who are members of our great party, voted en masse during the direct primary, and the results reflected the will, the wishes, and the mandate of the people from the field.
“All of a sudden, we are seeing rumours, speculations and some kind of hanky-panky that some names were shuffled, reshuffled and even replaced. By who? By one Professor Nentawe, our party chairman, who is from the northern extraction, imposing candidates on us in Ondo State.
“The truth is that the South-West is a peaceful region and a stronghold of the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, where he will get overwhelming support.
“We don’t know whom our national party chairman is working for, whether he is working for the opposition, his brother, Atiku Abubakar, from the North, to defeat our candidate, the people’s president from the South.
“That is why we are asking: how did this democratic coup being perpetrated against our people come about? If they attempt to disrupt Nigeria’s peace by inciting chaos and crisis through our party in Ondo State, let it be on record that we, the people, will resist.
“Nobody has defeated the army of the people in history, and nobody can defeat our people in Ondo State. That is sacrosanct.”
The APC Women Leader said the women and youth are protesting against injustice in the name of the candidates released by the leadership of the party.
Iji-Ayeola said, “We are crying against injustice. We are crying against one man dictating the fate of Ondo State. We, women, are crying against one man changing the future of Ondo State. That is why we are out here.”
