OUTRAGE over last Saturday polls and growing disinterest in the coming elections continued to spread yesterday as extremely worried women took to the streets of Warri the Delta State capital city.
Like in Imo and Ondo, 24 hours earlier, they were half-naked. And one of them, a sexagenarian, marched out stark naked. They all had bitter words for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Delta State government whom they accused of mass rigging of last Saturday’s polls.
And from the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) came a stringent condemnation of the polls and a call for cancellation.
One of the women, a sexagenarian, caused a stir when she joined the protesters completely naked. She rained curses on INEC whom she claimed connived with the Delta State Government officials to rig the elections.
One of the protesters who gave her name as Onome Ighore said the women of Warri were deeply worried as they could not vote last Saturday despite coming out in large numbers for the exercise.
“Election did not take place anywhere…God will surely punish them” She shouted
The women carried placards with various inscriptions: “Conduct fresh elections,” INEC rigged the election,” “No to rigging”, “We reject the election results” and several others.
The women barricaded the entrance to the Delta Broadcasting Service (DBS) office at Edjeba to register their disappointment, but were chased away by armed soldiers who had been positioned at the station since the day of elections.
The soldiers used horsewhips to chase the women far away across the NPA Express way.
Two armoured vehicles with combat-ready soldiers were positioned at the DBS.
The women have vowed to continue their protest until the results of last Saturday’s election are cancelled.
And barely eight hours after the Coalition of opposition candidates (COC) called for the shift of the polls to such a time that a conducive atmosphere for a free, fair and credible elections would be conducted, ASUU has also described last Saturday’s elections as the worst in the history of the country.
ASUU, in a statement by its president, Dr. Abdullahi Sule-Kano drew attention to what it called anti-democratic, dangerous and destructive characteristics of the past elections such as political thuggery, assassination, state repression, intimidation, selective sorting of political parties, as well as the wide disenfranchisement of Nigerian.
Similarly, the presidential candidate of the Citizens Popular Party (CPP), Chief Maxi Okwu, argued in an interview yesterday in Abuja that participating in the Saturday’s elections for the Presidential and National Assembly with the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) amounted to stamping legitimacy on the alleged fraud, which he said would be committed.
Speaking to journalists, Okwu aligned himself with the resolutions of the COC members on the elections, saying, his people had warned him not to bother to come home for the polls, because they promised not to come out to vote, since their votes would be awarded to another person.
The university teachers’ union submitted that for the nation to lay a solid foundation for reclaiming the peoples’ s sovereignty, Nigerians must avoid the sad experiences of the past, alluding to the happenings during the 2003 elections.
ASUU said that it was sad that Nigeria was yet to get over the 2003 experience, as the same factors that robbed the people of their rights to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed right to elect their leaders have come up again as was manifested during the April 14 elections.
Some of the factors it listed include extra judicial political murders, the use of state violence to cow opponents of the ruling party/government; the looting of the treasury to advance political goals of sustaining power; the use of illegal and unconstitutional means to ban Nigerians from exercising their rights to be voted for
According to ASUU, it is sad that the April 14 elections exhibited at a worse level, the experiences of the past, surpassing the 2003 elections, going by the observations of the monitoring of the April 14 elections by ASUU branches nation-wide.
It mentioned among others, widespread and deliberate manipulation of voters’ registers list. Not only was there no display of voters list in most wards and local governments; where there was display, a lot of names were omitted.
ASUU added that there was the use of illegal/unconstitutional disqualification of candidates by INEC, adding that the April 16 Supreme Court judgment has, by all implications, nullified all INEC disqualification of candidates.
The police and soldiers were used to intimidate voters in many places, and in some cases were involved in the snatching of ballot boxes, ASUU added.
It, therefore, called on Nigerians to reject and resist rigging at every level of elections in whatever forms in order to defend their constitutionally guaranteed right to select their leaders.
“We re-affirm this position of ASUU-NEC and call upon Nigerians to stand up and reject in its entirety, the fraud committed on April 14, 2007 by INEC in the name of gubernatorial and Houses of Assembly elections.”
It saluted the judiciary for being faithful to its calling and for earning itself a golden position in the history of democratic development in Nigeria. It equally commended the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) for standing for justice and resistance to dictatorship in these difficult times.
Okwu faulted claims by INEC on Tuesday night that only four local councils’ elections were cancelled, insisting that no elections actually held in the entire Enugu State. He said, he aligned with the position of the Senate President, Ken Nnamani that no elections took place in Enugu.
Okwu described the claims of the Information and Communication Minister, Mr. Frank Nweke, as patent lies, alluding to the statement credited to Nnamani that the minister’s father could not even vote in his polling unit.
He lamented that the state has been under police and military, since the conduct of Saturday’s election, comparing the situation to a situation of coup detat.
“Going by what happened on Saturday, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua has already won the elections, so how do we now go and give legitimacy to the big fraud that has been committed by the PDP government and their agencies, the statement declared.