The November 16 2019 governorship election has been described as a crucial stage in the democratic progress of Kogi state.
The executive director of Challenge Parenthood initiative (CPI), Eunice Abimbola Agbogun made this known at the unveiling and multi stakeholders meeting of the GOTV/Stop Violence Against Women in Politics (STOP-VAWIP) project campaign in Lokoja on Tuesday.
She bemoaned the near non-inclusion of women in Nigeria politics and warned that Kogi state cannot afford to relegate half its population to the back and expect to move forward.
“Our democratic journey as a nation and particularly as a state has not been as inclusive and as encompassing as our founding fathers had envisage. This is so because women, who make up half the population, are deliberately and consciously left out in the decision making governance structure. This has clearly emasculated the desired development we ought to have gotten from our participation in the democratic experiment.
“Statistics show that women make up just under 6% of all elective positions at the national level and this is worse at the state level were no woman is present at all.
“The Governor and the deputy governor are men. The Speaker, Deputy Speaker and all Principal Officers of the Kogi State House of Assembly are men. In fact, of all the 25 members of the Assembly, none is a woman.
“The matter is worsened when the state appointed Administrators to the 21 local government councils, and again no woman was included!
“This definitely will not augur well for our development which is already fraught with severe challenges. To address some of the identified challenges faced by women in participating in the electoral process, strategic and deliberate interventions need to be in place, thus the birth of the STOP VAWIP/GOTV campaign.
“The Kogi state women Get Out the Vote (GOTV), voter education and Stop-VAWIP campaign project is a 4 months, project that is implemented across the 21 local government areas of Kogi State, that aims at empowering women to engage and participate in the electoral process through knowledge impartation, information and skills provision and community mobilization for a reduced gender based violence in elections,” she said.
Earlier in his remarks, the deputy country director of National Democratic Institute (NDI), Raymond Esebagbon said since 1999 NDI has been on ground to promote good governance and ensure transparency during electioneering process.
Esebagbon noted that the Kogi and Bayelsa state governorship elections is key towards restoring the hope of the nation’s democracy.
He added that there should be aggressive campaign against hate speech, fake news and disinformation.
