Political advocacy group, South West Independent Campaign Movement, SWICAM, has expressed dissatisfaction with voter apathy in the South-West, but promised Governor Biodun Oyebanji of Ekiti State 1.5 million votes.
Rising from its maiden congress in Ado Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, the group said it is working hard to achieve this, adding that such a feat is possible if a non-party campaign strategy is employed to galvanise people across the 177 wards in the state.
According to the group, the South-West has the second-largest number of voters in Nigeria and is in a position to secure between 15 and 20 million votes from the region if the people are effectively mobilised.
The group’s National Coordinator, Suleiman Olubayo, alongside Mr Fred Ojinika and Idris Abukar, who represent the Niger Delta and Northern communities in the South-West respectively, stated in a communiqué:
“We are set to change the voting culture in the South-West. We are using non-party volunteers, engaging teachers, meeting farmers on their farms, interacting with students in tertiary and secondary institutions, as well as market men and women. Professional groups, the young and the elderly are also not left out.
“We have embarked on a revolutionary campaign. The difference is that the campaign is not led by the APC but by non-party members who are concerned about the need to preserve democracy against military intervention, sustain power shift to the South, and support ongoing efforts at restructuring the country, which the APC has initiated.
“SWICAM has the mandate to mobilise the people for popular votes for Oyebanji. We want his victory to be total and overwhelming. We are also sensitising people in the South-West on the current power shift, while urging them to mobilise against coups.”
The group said Ekiti State alone, with a population of over four million people, is capable of producing 1.5 million votes for Oyebanji. It added that the volunteers recruited for the campaign are mostly young people who will move from one community to another to encourage support for the APC.
It listed achievements it said were not recorded during the 16 years of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, rule, including the movement of railway and electricity to the concurrent list, the initiation of state police, the establishment of the South-West Development Commission, SWDC, and ongoing efforts toward the creation of state police.
The group described these as fundamental interventions aimed at strengthening self-determination, a key pillar of democracy, warning that a return to the PDP or the African Democratic Congress, ADC, would spell doom for Nigeria.