No fewer than 500 women from across the 13 local government areas of Nasarawa State on Tuesday stormed Lafia, the state capital to demand the cancellation of Saturday’s governorship election in the state.
The state Women Leader of the Peoples Democratic Party, Stella Oboshi, led women from the PDP and other political parties to the peaceful protest as they claimed the governorship poll held on March 18 was inconclusive.
Oboshi explained that the reason for the protest was that the Independent National Electoral Commission went ahead to announce a winner of the governorship election amid contention in the results that emanated from the Gayam and Ciroma electoral wards in the state capital.
Oboshi said, “What we are doing today is a peaceful protest and it is allowed in a democracy. The reason for our protest is that in Nasarawa State, two electoral wards cannot hold the whole state to ransom.
“The governorship election and that of the House of Assembly were done the same day, the same time and with the same election materials. But the governorship election was announced, and that of the House of Assembly has not been announced up till this moment because it was declared inconclusive.
“If Gayam and Ciroma wards’ results in the Lafia LGA were included in the results that INEC announced for the governorship election, (and) the Assembly elections were inconclusive in the same electoral wards, then INEC should also declare the governorship election inconclusive so that we can start afresh.”
She appealed to supporters of the PDP and other opposition political parties in the state to remain calm, while expressing optimism that INEC would do the needful by declaring the already announced governorship election inconclusive.
Our correspondent reports that the incumbent Governor, Abdullahi Sule, scored 347, 209 votes in the contest to defeat his closest challenger, David Ombugadu of the PDP who polled 283, 016 votes, while Abdullahi Maidoya of the New Nigeria Peoples Party got 11,726 votes.
