I Did Not Collect N75m For Anti-Melaye Rally – Kemi Nelson Reacts

Women Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC),
Chief (Mrs.) Kemi Nelson has denied receiving N75
Million from Senator Oluremi Tinubu to organise a rally
against Senator Dino Melaye for reportedly assaulting
Tinubu at the senate chamber recently.

Reacting to a report by a civil rights movement,
Committee for the Defence of Women’s Rights that
Senator Oluremi Tinubu released N75 million to her
through one of her sisters simply identified as Funlola,
to organise a protest against Melaye, Nelson said that
the report was a figment of the imagination of the
committee.

The National President of CDWR, Prof. Taibat
Majekodunmi, had made the allegation against Nelson
in a statement issued on Monday in Abuja.

“Already, the protesters have stormed Abuja and have
booked for 300 rooms in many Hotels in hotels in
Abuja,” the statement said.

Nelson said in a statement she personally signed and
which was made available to the press that she didn’t
need to collect money from Senator Remi Tinubu or
her husband, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to organise
such a rally, adding that they were her mentors, who
she was ready to support without any pecuniary gain.

She said further that she would actually participate fully
in a rally that would be staged by a women group on
Wednesday July 20 in Abuja to protest the alleged
assault on Senator Tinubu by Senator Dino Melaye
during a closed door meeting of the senate last week.

“We are moving to Abuja in full force to be part of this
protest against Melaye for harassing a woman of
substance like Senator Tinubu, whose family paid a
huge price for our democracy. Our democracy is still
nascent and we must do everything within our power
to protect it.

“We should not allow people like Melaye to rubbish
what took years and cost us several lives to achieve.

What Melaye did was not just against Senator Tinubu,
but against all women and against our democracy. We
will not behave like Nero, who sleeps, while Rome
burns.

“All right thinking members of the society must rise
against this oppression and an open insult against
women by a man that has done little or nothing for our
democracy. We cannot pretend that nothing is
happening, when such a sacrilege is being committed in
our country,” the statement read.

Nelson stressed in the terse statement that she would
be leading several women from Lagos to Abuja to
protest against a system that she said allows someone
like Melaye to debase a woman that, according to her,
should be celebrated by the people.

She emphasised that this is the best time to ‘put people
like Melaye, where they belong,’ adding that posterity
would judge Melaye for trying to trivialise the hallowed
chamber of the senate.

“With what Melaye has done, he has been demystified
and he should be recalled by his people without any
delay. We cannot keep quiet at this material time. As
Professor Wole Soyinka would say; ‘the man dies, who
keeps silent in the face of tyranny,” she said.

Nelson then emphasised that it was totally untrue for
anybody to think that she would collect money from
Senator Oluremi Tinubu for such a venture, adding that
she is committed to supporting ‘right thinking people
and great achievers such as Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu
and his darling wife, Oluremi.’