POLITICS
2023: APC to Grant Free Nomination Forms to Women
By Jude Opara, Abuja
Ahead of the 2023 general elections, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has granted women the opportunity to contest for elections without paying for nomination forms.
National Women Leader of the APC, Dr. Betta Edu revealed this on Thursday while briefing newsmen on the activities of her office few days after her election as a member of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party.
Edu who was accompanied by her colleagues said women have nothing impeding their desire to contest for elective positions with the positive gesture from the leadership of the ruling party.
She noted that Nigerian women have all it takes to win every elective position, even as she urged them to step out and join partisan politics and also bring the change they desire.
The former Commissioner for Health in Cross River State also lauded the National Chairman of the APC, Sen. Abdullahi Adamu and other members of the NWC for unanimously endorsing the proposal to have some pick election forms free.
On her alleged role during the #EndSARS agitations in 2020, Dr. Edu said she played no role in the exercise, describing such notion as mere political propaganda.
While reacting to the recent Court ruling on the 35% affirmative action for women, the National Women Leader said they it is a right step in the right direction, because it is in tandem with the gesture of the APC to grant women free nomination forms.
She also promised to mobilize Nigerian women to not only support the APC, but to equally take part in the election now that they will not spend any money on nomination forms.
“We would mobilize women from the grassroot to the top. We are happy that the court had ruled but our party is beyond what the court ruled. It is one thing to have a judgement, it is another thing to have that party poised to implement. Before we read about the court ruling our party had already mainstreamed women. We had already given out forms for free to women to ensure that the affirmative action comes to be. Because you can give women the affirmative action of 35% and yet they don’t even have the funds to contest in the first place. If they are not coming out to contest then the position must be filled by someone else. And that is why the party has gone beyond 35% affirmative action. We are no longer at that level, we have passed that level. We are offering the Nigerian woman something that is great than the 35% affirmative action.
“We are giving them a seat at the table. Mainstreaming, a platform that you can be certain that you will emerge as the winner of that election. The ball is in our court to go all out and sensitize all women to run, get elected and perform exceptionally well while in office because that will be the ticket for the next woman who is waiting in the line to get into an elective position and appointive position. I’m very proud because women who have been given a chance at whatever level have performed exceptionally well”.
The Abia Chapter of the INEC Staff Welfare Association (ISWA) has warned its members to uphold the integrity of the commission and guard against the culture of manipulating election results.
The Abia Chairman of the association, Mr Collins Eze, gave the advice at the group’s general meeting and end-of-year party in Umuahia.
Speaking in an interview with newsmen on the sideline of the ceremony, Eze said that the staff members were adequately aware of their enormous responsibility and should ensure free, fair and credible elections.
He said: “We have also told our colleagues that anywhere they find themselves they should make sure that they do the needful by ensuring transparency in the conduct of elections.
“We have always told them not to allow anybody to induce them with money to manipulate election results.
“I’m happy that they have been building the capacity of our colleagues on election processes.
“So, in the coming years, we won’t have any problem in ensuring free, fair and peaceful elections.”
He said that the end-of-year party was special as it afforded them the opportunity “to wine and dine together as well as thank God for sustaining them in 2024”.
Eze said that his leadership had introduced various means of assisting members in dire financial needs by providing platforms to solicit suppory for them.
He expressed gratitude to members for their support and cooperation, describing them as the “secret behind the success of this administration”.
He said that 34 of at least 350 staff members of the commission in the state retired from service in 2024.
According to him, the development has placed a huge financial burden on the association, in terms of their welfare and entitlement as members.
Report says that each member received a carton of tomato paste as Christmas gift from the association. (NAN)
A chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Osita Okechukwu, has told the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to be thankful to God that its 16-year administration was not probed by the successive APC-led governments.Okechukwu stated this on Tuesday in Abuja, while reacting to a statement by PDP congratulating Ghanaians for the conduct of free, fair and transparent general elections.
Report says that PDP had, in a statement, said that the verdict of the people of Ghana in the presidential election was a signal to the APC that its days were numbered. The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, had said in the statement that the power of the people in Nigeria, just like in Ghana, would ‘surely prevail and end the APC’s oppressive rule’.This, he said, would “return Nigeria to the path of good governance, security, political stability and economic prosperity on the platform of the PDP in 2027.”However, in his reactions to Ologunagba’s statement, Okechukwu said that the PDP clan should thank God that former President Muhammadu Buhari and President Bola Tinubu, out of sheer statesmanship, had refused to probe ‘the 16 locus years of PDP administrations’.Okechukwu, a former Director-General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), described the 16 years of PDP administrations as ones full of squandering and lack of plan.He said that Nigeria had yet to recover from the humongous culture of impunity and trust deficit planted by PDP on the Nigerian soil.Okechukwu said corruption was among the culture of impunity, saying it governed the privatisation of Nigeria’s electricity value chain, a key element in the country’s industrialisation drive.“Another is the blatant rigging of the 2007 general elections which the foremost beneficiary, President Umaru Yar’Adua, out of good conscience and noble magnanimity, publicly acknowledged the malfeasance which characterised his victory,” he said.Okechukwu also mentioned what he called conscienceless sale of the legislative and ministerial quarters, the annual rentage of which, he said, was bleeding the country’s treasury.“Another one is the neglect of $23 billion Greenfield Refinery, which could have saved over $70 billion expended on importation of refined petroleum products and which simulated the economic hardship of today,” he said.On why, for nine years, the APC administration could not fix those challenges, he recalled the efforts made by the Buhari administration to reopen talks on the Greenfield Refinery which, according to him, the Chinese regrettably rebuffed.The former VON director-general said that Nigerians were not in a hurry to forget the deliberate breach of the rotational convention of president from the north to the south.He said that the country could not also forget the utter disregard for Section 7 of the PDP’s constitution which expressly mandated zoning.Okechukwu advised the PDP not to insult the sensibilities of Nigerians by assuming that citizens would easily forget how they were put in the harms way.He said that PDP should thank God that Buhari and Tinubu did not want to probe them, adding “that’s why Nigerians cannot decipher the difference between the two political parties.” (NAN)
Sen. Ned Nwoko (PDP-Delta) says that Local Government Administration is central to democracy in Nigeria as it ensures grassroots governance and service delivery at the local level.This is contained in a statement signed by Dr Michael Nwoko, the Chief of Staff to the lawmaker in Abuja on Monday.Nwoko said this on the occasion of the presentation of an award “Icon of Hope” to him by the Association of Local Government Vice Chairmen of Nigeria (ALGOVC).
He was represented by his Chief of Staff. He said that the importance of local government administration in the country could not be overemphasised, as it was the bedrock of democracy.According to him, local governments in Nigeria play key roles in the country’s democracy by promoting participatory democracy, providing services, and representing citizens.“Local Governments help determine local needs and how to meet them. They also act as a link between the centre, state, and local people.“They are created to decentralise power and bring the government closer to the people. They perform both mandatory and concurrent functions.“It is in view of this that I took it upon myself to enhance the viability of local governments through the Paris and London club loan refunds,”he said.Dr Folashade Olabanji-Oba, ALGOVC National Chairman, while presenting the award at its 7th Annual National Conference, said the award was in recognition of the lawmaker’s significant contributions to strengthening local government administration.She highlighted Nwoko’s critical role in ensuring the Paris and London Club loan refunds, a financial breakthrough she said enhanced the capacity of local governments nationwide.(NAN)
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