APC women protest, say they’ve been scammed

This is apparently notthe best of times for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as the outcome of the party’s primaries continue to throw up more and more aggrieved members.

Joining those crying out over alleged injustice meted out to them by the Adams Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee (NWC) of the party during the recently concluded primaries were female aspirants who accused APC of scamming them.

The aggrieved female aspirants on Tuesday besieged the party’s national secretariat in Abuja protesting the alleged fraud and vowed to boycott the 2019 elections should things remain as they presently are in the party.

Addressing newsmen, one of the female aspirants from Imo State, Milicent Duru, was sad that despite paying a huge amount of money for nomination and expression of interest forms, the APC marginalised them at the primaries nationwide.

“We, women have been marginalised for a very long time, and it has to stop because we still need to be included in the 2019 general elections. We were promised 35 per cent affirmative action for women. In August, 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 spoke that women would 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 the APC now is about 0.5 per cent from statistics.

“So, to us, it is a scam, and it is not as if we do not have the capacity or we did not buy nomination forms; we bought the forms, we paid half of the money compared to other parties, which did not charge women for anything. So, we paid good money but to our surprise……we are wondering why we should not be included in the affairs of the country.

READ ALSO: APC groups protest, names govs behind Oshiomhole’s travails

“If this continues, it shows we are going to boycott the 2019 elections. That is exactly why we are protesting today,” Duru said.

On what they are demanding from the party’s leadership she said, “What we are having now in APC is 0.5%. It doesn’t meet up at all. We also have the right to protest; we bought the forms, we should be included. We shouldn’t be treated like people who do not have a right in this country; we have every right to do anything we need to do so we should be respected.”

 

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