The parties made the commitment in separate meetings with women leaders who, acting under the coalition, Gender Affirmative Action (GAA), visited the parties at the weekend.
The former women leader of the Peoples Democratic Party ((PDP), Mrs Josephine Anenih; former Benue State House of Assembly Speaker, Mrs Margaret Icheen; Chairman of House of Representatives Committee on Women Affairs, Hon Binta Masi Garba, among others, are currently paying advocacy visits to political parties in an effort to make them promote gender equity by mainstreaming women in their elective and appointive positions.
The National Secretary of the PPA, Kabiru Musa Abdullahi, who received the GAA team on Thursday, said the party is gender-sensitive and believeds that the time when women were said to lack the qualities of good leadership is gone.
He said, “the argument that women don’t have the abilities to hold public offices is no longer tenable. As a party, we place premium on women participation in politics. Effective nation building must include women.”
The National Women Leader of the PPA, Hajiya Halima Soda, who was on hand to welcome the GAA team to the party’s national secretariat in Abuja, assured the members that her party hads programmes for women empowerment, and that making the party available for Hon Uche Ekwunife to contest the Anambra governorship election is an example of the party’s high regard for women.
Mrs Margaret Icheen who spoke for GAA expressed the organisation’s gratitude to the party for fielding Ekwunife. “Where men are, women should be there too; that is what we are saying,” she said.
The Senior Project Officer of the organisation, Mrs Omowumi Asubiaro-Dada who explained the purpose of the visits to political parties in an interview said her organisation recognizes that political parties are important vehicles which women need in their aspiration to leadership positions and was therefore out to make the parties give fair chances to women so that they could flourish along with men.
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