The main entrance to the International Conference Centre (ICC) Abuja, venue of the National Collation Centre, for last Saturday’s presidential election, was on Tuesday barricaded by hundreds of protesters, majorly women.
Allegedly of different political parties, the protesters, gathered to express dissatisfaction over the inability of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to upload presidential election results on its result viewing portal.
Alongside pockets of men folk, the women threatened to go naked if INEC remained adamant to their demand for total cancellation of the presidential election.
A protester, Lillian Kozau, urged President Muhammadu Buhari not to allow his image and legacy be destroyed by the electoral body.
“INEC assured us that it would be a transparent process. They assured us of a transparent process and that the BVAS would be used, which is supposed to be an electronic process. Yet, after three days, 23 states still need to be uploaded. Why? Does this mean we will be doing this for one week?
“Why will a result be deleted from a platform after it has been uploaded? What are they up to? All we asked for was a transparent process. We just wanted whoever we voted for to emerge as the president of this country. We just wanted hope; we just wanted things to work. We are not asking for too much.
“We are not violent. Nobody is holding any weapon; we are just trying to make our voices heard. Please, our president should call INEC chairman to order. Eight years have passed, and we don’t care what happened. We are looking to the future. Buhari should not let his legacy be tarnished.
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“Let them follow due process. Whosoever, we have voted for should be announced as the president of the country. Let things be done rightly,” Kozau expressed.
The protest placards were brandished with various inscriptions like ‘occupy INEC now’, ‘our votes must count’, ‘Nigeria not for sale, we must fight for justice’, ‘we stand for justice, we fight for a new Nigeria’, ‘INEC is subverting the will of the people’, ‘INEC, please save Nigeria from war’, ‘the poor does not have money for visa, for flight tickets abroad’ to mention but a few.
However, with the overwhelming presence of the protesters, the security agents fortified security, deployed more vehicles and personnel at strategic positions to forestall any security breach.
Ilemona Onoja, another protester, similarly said their major demand was for the INEC chairman to fulfil what he promised Nigerians before the election, which was a transparent and open process.
He lamented that the process was not being followed, rather, what they were seeing was a situation where results were written and were announced as the results of the election contrary to the provisions of the Electoral Act, the INEC guidelines that they issued, and the promises of the INEC chairman.
Onoja stated: “We came out on the 25th of February to cast our votes for our preferred candidates. We were told that a process was going to be followed. This process involves accreditation, voting and our ballots will be counted. After it has been counted, it will be transmitted directly to a central server. And that on the day of the election, at the national collation centre, that central server will be displayed and we will be able to follow the results.
“Now, all we are saying is, we don’t mind if our preferred candidate loses, just give us a transparent and open process. Let us be able to see the results. INEC promised us they will follow a certain procedure, we are asking them to follow it.”
