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Scores of elderly
women from Biase Local Government Area of Cross River State have
relocated to Calabar, the state capital, protesting that last
Saturday’s council election conducted in the state did not hold at
Erei, their community , hence no result can be declared for the council
wards there.

Led by an
octogenarian, the women (some of whom were half nude) said the
landslide victory ascribed to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
candidates was a fluke, as no voting took place at Erei. Some of the
women flaunted their breasts in anger, claiming “soldiers and mobile
policemen were used by card carrying members of the PDP to hijack
election materials”.

The protest took
the women to the headquarters of the Cross River State Independent
Electoral Commission (CROSIEC), who arrived just when the chairman of
the commission, Patrick Otu, was announcing the second set of results.
From the commission’s secretariat on Bishop Monagh Avenue, Calabar, the
women thereafter marched to the Governor’s Office on a similar mission.

The women were accompanied by Frank Owali, the APGA chairmanship candidate for the area.

With anger on their
faces, the elderly women, numbering over 50, chanted war songs
denouncing the council polls and called for fresh elections, especially
in Biase, as the people there did not exercise their franchise. No
official of the CROSIEC came out to address them.

The
placard-carrying women said since they were denied the opportunity to
vote, they could not vote for candidates of their choice. They called
on the state governor, Liyel Imoke, to prevail on the leadership of the
CROSIEC to reschedule the Biase Local Government council elections, as
voting materials, including result sheets for the area were allegedly
carted away by some influential PDP members in the area.

Arrested and detained

Leader of the Erei
women, Gloria Ekor Owali also stated that some of their children were
arrested and detained at the state police headquarters, Diamond Hill in
Calabar, over Saturday’s polls, for protesting the hijack of their
ballots. They accused Emil Inyang, the chairman of the Biase Local
Government who has been re-elected for a second term, and Alex Ukam,
the lawmaker representing the area in the House of Representatives, of
using armed soldiers and mobile policemen to prevent the electorate in
the area from choosing those they wanted as chairman and councillors
for the area.

“We came out to
vote, but we did not see materials, yet they have written results,
declaring Emil Inyang winner,” the protesting women said. “If this is
what electoral reforms is all about, it then means Nigeria is not yet
ready for true democracy.” They said about 67 armed soldiers,
accompanied by 12 mobile policemen in two trucks, allegedly invaded
their communities, led by some stalwarts of the PDP, to arrest people
who were perceived to be working against the PDP.

The women,
therefore, appealed to the state Commissioner of Police to release
their children whom they said were wrongly arrested.

The Erei women,
during their protest to the governor’s office, urged Mr Imoke to
prevail on the authorities of the 13 Amphibious Brigade, Nigerian Armed
Forces Calabar and the state Commissioner of Police to release their
children from detention, as “they are not criminals”.