Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
All Progressives Congress (APC) women aspirants, on Tuesday, threatened to mobilise protest vote against the ruling party over what they described as marginalisation against women.
The women that protested at the national secretariat of the party alleged that the ruling party glaringly marginalised them in the just concluded primary elections nationwide.
The protesters holding posters with various inscriptions like ‘APC is hater of women’, ‘APC scammed women’, ‘Refused to give them ticket,’ ‘Nigerian women say No to APC’, among others, threatened to vote against the ruling party if nothing tangible is done to address their plight.
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Speaking with newsmen during the protest, one of the aspirants from Imo state, Milicent Chinasa Duru, said despite paying big amount of money for nomination and expression of interest forms, the ruling party shortchanged them at primaries nationwide.
“We women have been marginalised for a very long time and it has to stop because we still need to be included for the 2019 general election.
“We were promised 35 per cent affirmative action in August when the president of Nigeria came for a summit organised by Women in Politics.
“The president spoke that women were going to be included, his wife, the First Lady also promised that women will be included and even the National Chairman of the APC promised us that this time around we must get our 35 per cent affirmative.
“So far, what we have in APC now is about 0.5 per cent from statistics. So, to us it’s a scam and it’s not as if we do not have the capacity to buy nomination forms.
“We bought the forms, we paid half of the money compared to other parties, which does not charge women for anything.
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“So, we paid good money, but to our surprises, we are wondering why we should not be included in the affairs of the country when we are the best, when we are the main people that will bring out people to vote in the 2019 election.
“If this continues, it shows we are going to boycott 2019 election. That is exactly why we are protesting today.
“We are women of APC. I am speaking on behalf of the women in APC, why because we even paid 50 per cent of the forms, no party in this country pays up to what we paid.
“So, we should be given the respect, we should be included in this country or we will mobilize vote against the party,” she warned.
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