Shun peanuts, vote according to your conscience, minister urges women

Dame Pauline Tallen, the Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, has reiterated the ministry’s resolve to support and promote programmes that will uplift Nigerian women.

Tallen said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) shortly after an “Awareness Walk” in Abuja.

The event was organised by Women W4W/HE4SHE, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) chapter.

The theme of the walk was ‘2023 Elections: Women Voices Must Be Heard/Campaign Against Gender Based Violence”.

According to the minister, we must engage women in programmes that will improve their wellbeing.

Speaking on the forthcoming elections, Tallen said, “if women can support one another, we can determine who becomes the president of Nigeria.”

The minister expressed joy that for the first time in the history of Nigeria, “we have a female governorship candidate in a ruling party.

“We must support her and all other female candidates to make sure they sail tnrough. Our voices must be heard,” Tallen said.

She urged women to shun peanuts being given by some politicians to induce them to sell their conscience.

The minister also appealed to women to talk to their children not to allow themselves to be used to disrupt the electoral process throuhj rigging and snatching of ballot boxes.

She commended the Women W4W/HE4SHE for organising the programme and assured the organisation that the ministry was willing to partner with them on programmes that would ensure women’s wellbeing.

Also speaking, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Mr Shehu Shinkafi said “women have the numerical strength, but unfortunately we are not making use of it.

Shinkafi stressed the need for women to be united and support one another to enable them succeed in whatever they set out to do.

Delivering a lecture on the “Ethics of Voting” Mrs Victoria Eta-Messi, the Deputy Director, Gender Relations, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said orderliness was critical in any election.

According to her, without it there will be chao which makes the electorstd to be vulnerable.

Eta- Messi urged women to vote according to their conscience and not engabe in community or family voting.

Earlier, the Coordinator Women W4W/HE4SHE, Hajiya Binta Ibrahim, said the organisation, a Women led movement was founded in 2018.

Ibrahim said its core mandate was to mobilise women, youths and the male HE4SHE toward sensitisation and participation in the political scheme of affairs in Nigeria.

“We are non-religious, non-cultural and non-tribal.

In line with our objectives,  we decided to mark this ceremony as our own way of adding our voices to the issues of women in politics.

‘As well as campaign against gender based violence that is prevalent in our communities. As an organisation, we will always say NO first to gender based violence.

‘Because we realised that apart from domestic violence, there is also physical, political violence against women before, during and after elections,” she said. (NAN)