Okwe Obi, Abuja
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has said women performed poorly in the 2019 general elections.
INEC’s Deputy Director and Head Gender Division, Blessing Obidiegwu, who stated this yesterday at Consultative Forum on Sharing Experiences for the Conduct of the 2nd Peer Review, in Abuja revealed
that woman who won primaries were sidelined by political parties, while others were disqualified from taking part.
“In the 2019 general elections, women did not do well at all. Instead, they receded. We know why that happened. There are a lot of barriers to women’s participation in elections.
“In 2019, women who won primaries, for some reason, were set aside. A lot happened especially the killing of a women leader in Kogi State. I was there. I sensitised women and told them everything would be okay. You can imagine my pain when I saw that woman died.
“As an election management body that is gender-responsive, we encourage women to participate in elections. We know that when we have men and women at the table taking decision we will achieve better and our country will progress better and faster,” she said.
Obidiegwu noted that the electoral act, if signed by President Mohammadu Buhari, would afford women the opportunity to do better, and urged them to speak up in the summit and come up with recommendations favourable to them.
“This is an opportunity for us to speak on all those things that have been hurting us. To have more inclusive elections, we must put things in the electoral act. I pray that by the end of this summit we will achieve more and bring valuable recommendations to the table,” she said.
Meanwhile, Chief Executive Officer of AUDA-NEPAD, Princess Gloria Akobundu, said the meeting, otherwise called The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), was set up to enable Nigerians to brainstorm thematic areas like democracy and political governance; economic management; corporate governance and socio-economic development; adding that the outcome would be documented and sent to the African Union.
“This is consultative meeting and interactions with citizens of Nigeria. It is to gather an assessment report of where we were, where we are and where we want to be.
“It is a welcome development were citizens will come up with his or her own opinion and knowledge to add value to the country. It is inclusive governance which is the vision of the present administration,” she said.
Akobundu, however, stressed that not everything is bad with Nigeria, stating that every country has its own peculiar problems.
She appealed to Nigerians to pray for their leaders rather than rain curses on them.
“Mind you, everything is not bad in Nigeria; we have a lot of good history to consolidate. That is how to move forward.
“Every country in the world has a challenge. But the ability to foster solution make it a great nation. If we do not identify the problems, how do we solve it? We must think about the values our parents applied to a better society. We should not be abusing our leaders; we should guide, pray for our leaders and give them time to implement good policies.”