APC leader urges women to forge united front, occupy more elective posts

Ms Stella Okotete, the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Women Leader has called on women to forge a united front to ensure they occupy more elective positions in the party and government.

Okotete, the women representative in the APC Caretaker and Extra-ordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) made the call in a statement on Friday in Abuja.

“As we go into heightened electioneering in 2022, women are in the best position to change Nigeria, to achieve this women need a united front. We need to continue to support women to win elections.

“The coming APC congresses provide one of the best opportunities that women in this room have to properly position themselves in party administration.

”Roughly 50 per cent of the Nigerian populations are women. Imagine if we have 43% committed as progressive women, will anybody be a president without us?”

“Ahead of the 2023 general elections, women votes will be a key determiner of candidates elected as state governors, legislators and the president,” the women leader said.

She said the exclusion of young women from the adoption of laws, negotiation of budgets and mechanisms to hold governments to account undermined the valuable contributions made for the good of future generations

She noted that women, particularly young females, formed a bulk of registered voters in the country and would define and determine who governs the states and the country generally.

Okotete who recently launched the Progressive Young Women Forum in collaboration with the International Republican Institute however, called on women to cooperate and forge a united front.

She said this was critical to ensure that more women occupied more elective positions in the party and government at all levels.

The leader said the forum was created to develop the leadership quality needed for young women to take their place on the decision table and to develop political power.

According to her, the forum is designed to holistically invest in the leadership and political power of young Nigerian women.

She expressed optimism that the coming APC congresses would provide one of the best opportunities for women to properly position themselves in party administration.

She urged women who are yet to have their membership cards to do so to enable them participate effectively in party politics.

The party leader further said that once a woman was voted into a political office, she would be able to hold forth for other women and protect their interest better.

“If women occupy party positions, for example at the local government level, she is not only there for herself but on behalf of other women to determine who gets elective positions in constituencies and the entire state,” she said.

Okotete stressed that APC women were no longer contented with the single position of the office of the women leader which was customarily allocated to them.

She said that lobby was already ongoing toward ensuring that women occupied minimum of 13 positions in the party’s ward, local government and state levels in its coming congresses.

The APC national women leader further noted that there was need to groom more young women who would fill the leadership vacuum available.

This, she said, could be done by imbibing leadership qualities to enable them take over from older women.

She advised younger women to ensure that they were in politics to positively impact the lives of people.