South West Independent Campaign Movement, (SWICAM) is working hard to ensure 1.5million votes for the All Progressives Congress, APC candidate and State Governor Biodun Oyebanji in the coming gubernatorial election. The group said such a feat is possible if non-party strategy of campaign is employed to galvanise the people across the 177wards in the state.
The group said promised the entire South West has the second largest number of voters in Nigeria and in a position to secure 15 to 20millon votes from the region if the people are effectively mobilised. It however regretted that voter’s apathy in the South West is the highest in the country.
‘We are set to change the voting culture in the South West. We are using non-party volunteers, speaking to teachers, meeting peasants on their farms, meeting students in high and higher institutions, market women and men, while professional organisations and the young and the aged are not left out’.
In a communique issued and signed by group’s National Coordinators, Suleiman Olubayo, Fred Ojinika and Idris Abukar representing the Niger Delta and Northern communities in the South West, at its maiden congress at Ado Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, said it would use Ekiti State as the starting point towards a new, conscious voter’s culture in the South West.
Over 500 delegates from across the South West, Kwara, Kogi, Delta and Edo Statwes attended the historic event. The group said Ekiti alone with a population of over 4million people is in a position to produce 1.5million votes for the All Progressives Congress, (APC) candidate and Governor of Ekiti State, Biodun Oyebanji.
The group said the volunteers recruited to campaign in Ekiti are young people who will move from one community to the other not just talking to the people but acting like evangelists with Information, Education and Communication Materials.
‘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 to support the on-going efforts at restructuring the country which the APC had started.
In the communique, the group said it is specifically mobilising the entire South West for the All Progressives Congress, (APC) based on the fact that the APC leaderships in the region are the last remnants of progressives which have been decimated for many decades first by the military and later by the reactionary that took over power at the centre in 1999.
‘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 the people of the South West on the current power shift while at the same time putting them on their toes to galvanise the masses against coups.’
The South West has one of the fasted growing population in the country. The region provide sanctuary for m
SWICAM has reached out to all the 151 traditional rulers in Ekiti State, while communication tools have been developed specifically for all teachers, traders, civil servants, peasants, farmers, primary, secondary and university principals and students, professionals, traders, hunters and even rural goldsmiths while information materials were also produced to Igbo, Northerners and people from the Niger-Delta region.
The group said ‘Personal communication give people a deep sense of belonging. It establishes a bond of friendship and recognition. This is something Ekiti people value a lot.’