ABUJA (Women Affairs Ministry Report) – Nigeria’s First Lady, Patience Jonathan has called on Nigerian women to support the re-election of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, saying his administration would usher more women into governance.
She made the call in Abuja while speaking at the National Conference on Women and Elections with the theme: “Enhancing Opportunities for Women Candidates in the 2015 Elections.” Represented by the Minister of Water Resources, Sarah Ochekpe (Dr), the First Lady expressed need to create enabling environments for women political participation, adding that they have the right to participate in the socio – economic development of the country.
Patience Jonathan charged all registered political parties and politicians to draw guidance from the 2006 National Gender Policy, in order to integrate more women into the political process. She lamented that political parties have declined form integrating women’s needs into democracy, stressing that the reviewed constitution specifies that there should not be more than two thirds of any gender in government.
The First Lady observed that only a few women serve in the National Executive Committee of Political Parties; adding that even though women are as politically sensitive as the men, they find it difficult to translate the knowledge into holding political positions. “Evidently, issues such as patriarchy, religion, vote buying, ethical and cultural issues and limited access to resources affected women’s participation in the last general elections,” she said.
Speaking earlier, INEC Chairman, Attahiru Jega represented by INEC Commissioner, Gladys Nwafor disclosed that INEC is cultivating a culture of transforming electoral challenges into opportunities for women to enable fair representation of women at all levels of government.
Also speaking, the Project Director of the UNDP Democratic Governance for Development Project, Mourtada Deme (Dr) said that Nigeria’s ranking for women’s overall economic participation has improved by more than 30 slots, indicating that Nigeria now ranks 55th in the world down from 89th position in 2009.
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