Women, youths, and other protesting citizens of Nasarawa State have pledged to keep up their protests until justice is given for those who supported David Ombugadu, the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, in the state’s election on March 18, 2023.
The PDP was charged by the All Progressives Congress with inciting a political, ethnic, and religious conflict in the state by supporting demonstrations against the ruling of the Abuja-based Court of Appeal, which upheld Abdullahi Sule’s election as the state’s governor.
An old woman named Sarah Danjuma told reporters that people in Lafia will keep demanding justice because the state’s desperate politicians stole their votes. She was speaking to reporters at the conclusion of a rally on Wednesday.
“As you can see, the majority of us here are widows, young people, elderly women, and other concerned citizens who are alarmed by the high rate of political slavery in the state,” the speaker stated.
“We voted for David Ombugadu in the March 18 governorship election instead of Abdullahi Sule.
We are staging a protest in order to urge that the appellate court’s ruling designating Sule as governor be overturned. We have no political party supporter, not even the PDP.
“The majority of us here always sell the products from our farms at the market to get money for food and water during the protests. Every day, a few of us who own cars or motorcycles use them to assist in getting people from our homes to the protest sites.
Therefore, if the APC members in the state claim that we are being supported by the PDP in order to protest David Ombugadu’s injustice, they are completely mistaken. Nothing else matters; Ombugadu is what we stand for. We are in support of our candidate, whose mandate has been stolen, whenever you see us in the PDP secretariat.
She thus urged the Supreme Court to fairly consider the drama that transpired at the well-known “Gayam and “Chiroma” electoral wards in the state’s Lafia Local Government Area during the gubernatorial contest.
“How can anyone overlook the irregularities during the March 18 governorship election under the guise of technicalities in the Lafia Local Government Area’s Gayam and Chiroma wards?” she continued.
“Approximately 13,000 people were registered to vote in the Gayam ward overall, according to INEC. Then, according to the election results, INEC awarded the APC alone 33,000 votes. We are trying to convey that this is traumatic.
“Secondly, INEC records that 21,000 voters were accredited in the Chiroma ward; yet, INEC reported that 59,000 votes were cast for the APC alone. In a democratic system, who will know all of these things and merely fold their hands?
All we want is for the proper action to be taken. The APC in power has referred to us by a variety of names. We were called prostitutes by them. We were allegedly paid to be nude. They called us reckless and shameless.
We are pleading with the justices to examine the state’s gubernatorial election results closely. They ought to base their decision-making on the merits of the case rather than on procedural minutiae.
