Wale Jagun
Nigerian women are up in arms against what they described as an attempt to deprive one of them of a hard won victory at the governorship election in Adamawa state.
Scores of women groups, made up of politicians across party lines, professionals in both public and private sectors, activists and other concerned women, led by Chief Mrs. Remi Adiukwu, a prominent female politician and former governorship candidate in Lagos State, have risen up in support of Senator Aisha Dahiru Binani, urging INEC to declare her as the governor elect of Adamawa State.
The women in a statement made available to reporters in Abuja today, called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to be guided by the spirit of equity and justice, with fairness to women paramount in its mind, as it deliberates over the stalled Adamawa governorship poll.
Under the auspices of a group BINANI’S MANDATE; WOMEN’S MANDATE, the Adiukwu-led women informed the electoral body of allegations of massive rigging of votes and inflations of result figures in some parts of the state in favour of the PDP candidate.
“In view of these allegations, we strongly advice that INEC should seriously scrutinize the purported results from Michika, Hong, and Madagali LGAs, where the governor camp and their collaborators came up with outrageous votes in their bid to suppress the people’s mandate freely given to Senator Binani,” the group said.
The release which was signed by Chief Adiukwu, Faith Pukuma and Ms Sonate James, among others, described Binani as “a giant of a woman and strong political soldier that fought her battle without fear, alone, with the support of the good people of the state.
“We resist the ongoing tactical attempt to rob her of her hard earned mandate and call on all well – meaning Nigerians to oppose another attempt to deprive women of our place in governance and politics”, the statement said
The governorship election in Adamawa State has been declared inconclusive by INEC. The Returning Officer, Mohammed Mele, said elections were not held in 47 wards across the twenty-one local government areas of the State.
According to him the total number of rejected/canceled and invalid votes which are 37,616 exceed the margin of lead that is 31,249, a final result cannot be declared for the state.
