From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Protesters, majorly women, numbering hundreds, yesterday, barricaded the main entrance road to the International Conference Centre (ICC) Abuja, venue of the National Collation Centre, for last Saturday’s presidential election.
The protesters said they were members of different political parties who gathered to express their dissatisfaction over the inability of INEC to upload election results on its portal.
The women with pockets of menfolk, threatened to strip naked if INEC remained adamant to their demand for total cancellation of the presidential election and conduct a fresh one.
Lillian Kozau, one of the protesters, called on President Buhari not to allow his image and legacy to be destroyed by INEC.
“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.
“Let them follow due process. Whosoever, we have voted for should be announced as the president of the country. Let things be done rightly.”
The protesters brandished placards 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’… and many more.
Rattled by the presence of the protesters, the security agents had fortified security, deployed more vehicles and personnel at strategic positions to forestall any security breach.