Organisation tasks Nigerian women on political offices
The International Women Communication Centre (IWCC), an NGO, has advised women of integrity in Nigeria to vie for political offices to enhance gender inclusion in the country’s electoral process.
Hajia Nimota Giwa, the Executive Director of the centre, made the call on Thursday in Ilorin during a one-day engagement for selected media platforms on National Gender Policy, Gender Equity and Social Inclusion.
The programme, which was supported by the the McAthur Foundation, was themed: “Towards Implementation of Electoral Integrity and Accountability in Kwara”.
According to her, such process will expand possibilities for credible women to be elected and promote good governance in the country, especially in the grassroots areas.
“There should be a level playing field for both male and female, and equal opportunities to acquire education.
“There should also be public sensitisation on the need to treat both sexes equally while female gender should be supported to vie for political offices.
“Political campaign should be devoid of campaign of calumny and hatred, and women of proven integrity be encouraged to come out and vie for political positions,” she said.
Giwa stated that the media should give both gender equal opportunity to air their views and there should be the need to engage religious and cultural groups to support gender-based policies.
She added that the programme was a media engagement to harvest input for domestication that will form the fulcrum of the national gender policy.
“This programme is a media engagement on issues of national gender policy, electoral policy, gender inclusion and the perspective of the media on the issue.
“We have collaborated with INEC, Ministries of Education and faith- based institutions all over the country to collect their input and what they think are the missing gaps or things that were not included to get it localised and gazette before it is passed into law.
“We want gender mainstreaming to be applied in all aspects of our development,” she added.
According to her, this is an ongoing dialogue and that there will be conferences organised soon in the state.
She assured that all the issues deliberated on would be put together to form the National Gender Policy and taken to the Kwara House of Assembly for consideration.
Giwa noted the conference was expected to produce a strategic planning meeting to address all the issues raised by the stakeholders for everybody to have input and own the documents.
