The controversy over the accreditation of the Non-Governmental Organisation Women Arise (WA) by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to observe Saturday’s governorship ballot in Ondo State has taken another dimension, with a frontline civil society organisation accusing the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) of threatening the life of WA leader, Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin, and her staff.

Intersociety Nigeria in a statement released this morning and signed by its BOT Chairman, Emeka Umeagbalasi, frowned at the desperation of ACN to stop Okei-Odumakin and her group from observing the elections which ACN has vowed to win so as to assume full control of the South-West.

The statement, a copy of which was made available to News Express, was entitled “Ondo Gubernatorial Poll: Before Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin & Co Are Bodily Attacked By Extremist Sectional Politicians.”

In it, Intersociety came down heavily on ACN’s national publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, for his “ongoing brutal verbal attacks directed at the national leadership of the Women Arise led by Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin.” The group warned of dire consequences if any harm should come to Okei-Odumakin or any of those working for Women Arise. Part of the statement reads as follows:

“In less than 48hrs, the ACN image maker has issued three public statements, attacking the Okei-Odumakin leadership of the Women Arise over its accreditation by the INEC to observe the said crucial poll. The worse is that the ACN image maker has reduced his position to a market square women’s gossip and tongue-wagging and coloured and clothed his responses in the layers of gender and religious sentiments, thereby making mockery of his party and office. His accusations against the Okei-Odumakin leadership of the Women Arise are both morally and legally baseless. Also, the former’s party cannot go to equity with soiled hands. Instances abound.

“The vehemence with which these attacks via three vitriolic public statements in less than two days are being so directed are giving us mountainous worries. They are both politically jittery and life-threatening. To confirm our intense fear, the Okei-Odumakin’s group has cried out and raised an alarm over possible violent attacks against its members and its leadership before, during and after the crucial poll. This is more so when her leadership has voiced out why it boycotted the so-called pro-Salami rally and issues therein, which suggest that the pro-Salami canonization bids, from the beginning, are politically oiled. The philosophies of hegemonic politics, information warfare and political intolerance are no longer in vogue in the polity of comity of nations. We not only support the Women Arise’s right of observation in the Ondo gubernatorial poll, but we also adopt it as our proximate rep in the said crucial poll. The ACN must be tolerant and accommodating in politics, and must no longer repeat its seeming infamous politics of exclusion and ethnicity especially in Lagos where despite the teeming population of the people of the Southeast resident in the strategic parts of the State including Ojo LGA, none of them was allowed to occupy by popular votes, an elected LGA/LGDA seat, not even in Ojo LGA that is popularly called Igbo LGA.

“We wish to warn sternly that if anything untoward happens to Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin or any of her group’s members before, during and after the crucial Ondo gubernatorial poll, heavens will let loose locally, nationally, sub-regionally, regionally and globally. The coming Ondo poll must be totally participatory, popular, credible, free and fair, irrespective of political party, CSO and marital affiliations in the State and beyond.”

*Photo: Okei-Odumakin.