- Request 50 percent representation in president's cabinet.
- We want female ministers, special advisers, board chairs; not lowest positions
The All Progressives Congress (APC) Women Aspirants Forum has criticized their male counterparts in the ruling party for marginalizing women to the extent that many of them could not clinch the party’s ticket to participate in the last general elections.
The forum, however, congratulated President Muhammadu Buhari on the successful Democracy Day celebration which followed his inauguration for a second term in office.
The leader of the forum, Mrs. Adedoyin Eshanumi, who led other women aspirants to a thanksgiving prayer on Friday on behalf of the president noted that God answered their prayers by ensuring that both events were hitch-free.
Eshanumi, who used the occasion of the thanksgiving to seek God’s protection for President Buhari, as he pilots the affairs of the nation for another four years pleaded for the inclusion of more women to facilitate nation-building.
“We pray to God to give our dear president the good health, strength, and wisdom needed to lead the country to the next level. We are about 360 women that contested different elective positions but only 0.1 percent scaled through.
“Our dear president promised to include us in his government to show us love the way we have supported him through our votes and prayers and we promise not to let him down, especially as the anti-corruption crusade intensifies,” Eshanumi said.
Mrs. Omorede Osifo-Marshal, a former commissioner for Youths and Sports in Edo, who aspired to represent Oredo Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, said, Nigerian women needed 50 percent of the available appointments in President Buhari’s cabinet.
“We want women ministers, special advisers, board chairmen; we want state governors to make women commissioners and all of that.
“We don’t want the lowest positions; we are women aspirants and we worked very hard to represent our people but at the end of the day, it didn’t work out, some of us were denied our tickets.
“I believe that as a man of integrity, our president will keep his words, not just to the women of Nigeria but to the women aspirants because we have worked for the success of our party,” Osifo-Marshal said.
Mrs. Ann Agom-Eze, Senatorial aspirant in Ebonyi South, who also spoke at the event pleaded with the president to give the APC Women Aspirants choice appointments to position them for 2023 election.
“The states that have never produced a Minister should be seriously considered for Ministerial appointments and heads of parastatals. Other women that have the experience should also be included to serve,” she said.
Another aspirant Princess Nkem Igwe, who aspired for the party’s ticket for Ebonyi State House of Assembly, urged the president to carry more women along in his government.
“We have been so marginalized by the men in most of the contests but I thank God almighty for bringing President Buhari back for a second term in office,” she said.