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Chuks Okocha in Abuja

The Vice-Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Rotimi Amaechi, has said women woul determine the outcome of the party’s battle against the All Progressives Congress (APC), in the 2027 general election, charging them to take the campaign into their wards and polling units.

Amaechi, who recalled how women were mobilised during the campaign that brought the APC to power, said the ADC must replicate that grassroots strategy if they hope to dislodge the ruling party.

He spoke yesterday at the ADC National Women League Conference at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja, alongside Hajiya Titi Atiku-Abubakar, wife of the party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and the Director-General and Campaign Manager of the Presidential Campaign Management Committee, Senator Austin Akobundu.

“The struggle to take away these (alleged) thieves from government is 90% dependent on our women,” Amaechi said.

Recalling APC’s campaign against the then ruling party, he said women were deliberately mobilised and placed at the forefront of the movement, arguing that their participation would again be critical to the ADC’s 2027 campaign.

“When we were in APC and we wanted to remove your government, you saw what we did. We brought out the women, in every state we went to, women were in front.

“We spoke to them, we met with them at night, and we made sure that we told them that if they did not come out to vote, we would not win. And they came out. We fought the war, and we won,” he said.

The former Rivers State governor tied the proposed mobilisation to what he described as worsening economic hardship, citing food prices, school fees, unemployment and the rising number of out-of-school children.

Amaechi claimed that the number of out-of-school children had risen from between 10 million and 12 million when he left government to about 20 million currently, while the number of illiterate Nigerians had reached 92 million.

He particularly urged women in the North to take the 2027 election seriously, alleging that the region accounted for a large proportion of the country’s out-of-school and illiterate population.

“If you’re a northern and you’re sitting here, you shouldn’t even be singing at all. Reason Tinubu is taking you more every day into poverty. It means that before you meet up with the South, Jesus Christ for us Christians would have come,” Amaechi said.

He challenged the women to turn their political participation into votes at ward level, saying the party’s target should go beyond its ‘one to 10’ mobilisation strategy.

Earlier, Titi Atiku-Abubakar urged women to mobilise voters across the country, particularly in rural communities, and resist attempts to influence their votes with temporary relief such as food or cash.

She said the rising cost of living was already putting pressure on families, citing increases in the prices of medicines, petrol and other essentials.

“Women, this time around we have to get it right,” she said.

Titi also alleged that some voters were being encouraged to surrender their voter cards in exchange for money or food, warning that such temporary assistance could not address the underlying economic hardship.

“This rice they are giving, how long is it going to last? Even if they give you 50,000. How long is this 50,000 going to last?” she asked.

Akobundu said the women and youth wings were central to ADC’s planned grassroots mobilisation, adding that the party would move its campaign structure from the national level to local governments, wards and polling units.

“We created two vibrant leagues: the women and the youth,” he said.