Niger Delta women protest continued detention of Rivers REC

Scores of women from states in the Niger Delta
protested, on Thursday, the continued detention and
harassment of the Rivers State Resident Electoral
Commissioner, Mrs. Gesila Khan.
The women, who protested in Yenagoa, Bayelsa
State, said the detention of Khan was an insult to
mothers and women, alleging that men of the
Department of State Services, DSS, had been
harassing the REC.
The women, under the aegis of the Niger Delta
Women for Peace and Development, appealed to
President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene in the
matter before it was too late.
The protesters, armed with placards with
inscriptions, ‘Buhari! Don’t allow DSS violate right
of women’, ‘The detention of Khan is a war against
Nigerian Mothers’ and ‘Free Khan Now or Face
curses from Nigerian Mothers’ condemned the
arrest and detention of the REC.
Leader of the group, Mrs. Grace Amabo, insisted
that the continued detention of Khan was creating
a bad image for the Buhari’s administration,
adding that it was an affront to issues of gender
equality and women’s rights.
She said: “The continued arrest is an affront to
Nigerian women and the Niger Delta people. It also
violates the right of women in public office as
enshrined in the Beijing Convention on Gender
Equality.
“Her continued incarceration by the DSS in Abuja
is biased, selective and having tribal connotations
to witch-hunt and blackmail our revered daughters
who have meritoriously served the nation.
“In spite of the affirmative action by the Federal
Government granting 35 per cent women
participation in politics and public governance has
not yielded result as the case of Mrs. Gesila Khan,
the REC of Rivers State is a clear testimony to the
gang-style raid against women in public service.
“The selective persecution of Khan immediately
after the All Progressives Congress government
was sworn-in at the federal level of governance
revealed that it was a script that was already
written down for execution.”
Speaking in the same vein, the Secretary of the
NDWPD, Mrs. Ruth Ibiama, said despite the sincere
efforts by the aggrieved politicians to move their
objections to a constitutionally established Election
Tribunal, some politicians were engaged in
dropping the name of President Buhari, adding that
through the development, they tried to ambush the
expected verdict of the tribunal using the
instrument of power and other inordinate means to
achieve their evil intention.
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