Stakeholders agreed to work with RECEF to discourage use of thugs in elections

— wants families, spouses to honour, respect political choices of women in the family.

Key stakeholders and community leaders of Kogi West during a town hall Meeting in Kabba on Wednesday, agreed to work towards discouraging the use of thugs by Political Parties, called on families and spouses to honour and respect the political choices of women in the family.

The town hall meeting was organized by the Renaissance Care and Empowerment Foundation (RECEF), on Women Participation in Elections as Voice for Development tagged ‘Women V4D project, with funding from the Government of Ireland.

According to the Executive Director of RECEF, Ambassador Idris Ozovehe Muraina, the townhall meeting is part of the strategies of the Women V4D campaign geared towards the objective of reducing the incidences of violence against women in elections and to increase the number of women voters in the forthcoming 2023 elections.

The townhall meeting enabled the presentation of the project objectives to the stakeholders with a view to securing their buy-in and extract commitments from the stakeholders to work together to achieve the objectives of the project.

The programme manager for the project, Ikechukwu Mpama, during his presentation, presented the data showing the declining participation of women in elections between 2015 and 2019 elections.

He also drew lessons from the Kenyans that have made significant giant strides in bridging the gender gap in election, politics and governance.

Other commitments extracted from participants during the plenary session of stakeholders’ engagement facilitated by Hamza Aliyu, Executive Director of INGRA,
are: a commitment to motivate women to vote for other women candidates

“A commitment to encourage women to ask for a seat at the political table

“A commitment to sensitize women to participate in women-centred political activities

The Executive Director of Idoko Foundation, Zico Onuche, and the chairperson Nigeria League of Women Voters, Hajia Mayomi Isa, both took turns to encourage women to overcome all hindrances and to take their destiny in their own hands.

The role of the VAPP Law as a legal framework to combat electoral violence was also highlighted during the town hall meeting.

Participants were drawn from various stakeholders including Market Women Association, Kabba MWASD representative, Security Agencies, religious leaders among others.