Convened by Senator Oluremi Tinubu and anchored by the party’s women mobilisation directorate, the Calabar stakeholders’ meeting asked each woman to deliver 100 to 200 votes at her polling unit.
Beyond the rallies, the screams, the dance and the empowerment handouts, the women who will actually man the polling units, wards and local government areas of Cross River State met in Calabar on Sunday to decide how the All Progressives Congress, APC, intends to win in 2027 — and the message from the top was blunt: support is no longer measured in declarations, but in votes counted at the polling unit.
The meeting, convened by Nigeria’s First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, under the Women Mobilisation Directorate of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, drew women from all 18 local government areas of the state. Its charge, delivered on the First Lady’s behalf by the directorate’s Dr Betta Edu, was that the party’s women must convert their loyalty into measurable electoral results through door-to-door canvassing, church gatherings, prayer meetings and market outreaches.
“The reality is that political loyalty will be demonstrated through the votes we secure at the polling units, not through mere declarations of support,” the First Lady said, charging the women to return to their units and gather their people, beginning with women.
“Go back to your polling units and gather your people, beginning with your women. Let them begin to canvass, door to door, church to church, prayer meeting to prayer meeting, market to market. By your result we will know who is who,” she said.
She set a concrete benchmark: at least 100 votes per polling unit, with those capable of mobilising 200 urged to aim for it.
“It is serious business. Go and begin to canvass for the votes,” Edu told the gathering, warning that the party could not afford internal division or complacency with the election cycle already under way.
Forgive, reconcile, deliver
Running through the meeting was an appeal for reconciliation. The First Lady asked party members to set aside personal disagreements and work towards a common objective, warning that a divided house would scatter its own votes.
“We must vote APC top to bottom. Don’t confuse our voters. Everyone should vote for APC. Double your mobilisation at this critical time, please,” she said.
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Edu reinforced the point in plainer terms: “If I offend you, forgive me. If your sister offends you, forgive her. This is not the time for grudges.”
She also insisted that the campaign structure in the state operate under a single line of authority, urging members to follow the direction of Governor Bassey Otu and his wife — and that the opportunities the party has extended to women must translate into stronger representation after the elections.
“By their results, we shall know them all,” she said.
Governor’s wife: ‘Bury the hatchet’
The wife of the Cross River State Governor, Bishop Eyoanwan Otu, preached the same message to the women, asking them to put aside personal grievances so that the party could present a united front.
“Whatever it is that has been bothering us, whatever we think has been our pain, let’s bury the hatchet and move on,” she said.
She urged the women to stay the course even when their efforts go unacknowledged — a theme she returned to with the cadence of a preacher.
“Whether they like it or not, whether they love you or not, whether they like your face or not, just keep doing what you’re doing. Do the right thing. Consistency will produce the result,” she said.
Bishop Otu used the platform to account for her own humanitarian work, particularly in health, which she described as her way of bridging the gap while the governor is occupied with governance, infrastructure and structural development. Her medical outreach programme, she said, has run 12 editions in three years and funded more than 2,000 surgeries.
“Health is wealth. Since the governor cannot be everywhere, while he is occupied by governance, administration and upgraded structural development, there must be somebody to bridge the gap,” she said.
She asked the women to carry the APC’s message into their communities, wards, polling units, churches and businesses, and to protect the party’s existing political structure to guarantee continuity — and, in her words, “more overwhelming victory.”
Empowerment, then the field
The Calabar engagement was not talk alone. Five hundred market women, artisans and petty traders received cash grants and working tools — deep freezers, blenders and toasters — with some petty traders receiving N50,000 to recapitalise businesses that had been running on capital as low as N5,000.
“We have not come empty-handed. We have come with different categories of empowerment,” Edu said, adding that the outreach would move to Ugep in the Central Senatorial District between November and December, and to the Northern Senatorial District in January.
The delegation also visited the General Hospital, Calabar, where it inspected facilities, distributed care packages and settled medical bills for vulnerable patients in the maternity and surgical wards. The hospital administrator, Mrs Bassey Effiong Ephraim, said recruitment of additional doctors and nurses was under way.
One beneficiary, Mrs Esther Bassey, a widow and mother of three from Odukpani Local Government Area, said such interventions had kept vulnerable households afloat.
Who was in the room
The meeting was attended by the wife of the Speaker, all female legislators in the House of Assembly, all female commissioners, all female local government chairmen and vice-chairmen, all female councillors, all female appointees, all female candidates in the next election and other critical women stakeholders drawn from the 18 local government areas.
By the time it ended, the strategies had been agreed, the targets set and the women dispatched to the field — with the party’s test of loyalty now reduced to a single, countable question at each polling unit.
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