By Ikechukwu Okaforadi
The National Women Leader of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC), Betta Edu, has charged the women folk to begin door to door mobilisation of voters for registration, saying it is the surest way to victory for the party in the 2023 general elections.
Receiving the Women Mobilisation arm of Yahaya Bello Presidential Campaign Team yesterday at the APC Secretariat in Abuja on a courtesy visit, Edu, who was Commissioner for Health in Cross River State before her election as APC Women Leader, said the women should go all out to mobilize votes for the victory of Governor Yahaya Bello.
“Our party will come together under the leadership of the President, Muhamadu Buhari and of course, the National Chairman and other leadership structures of our party, to decide on who will be the candidates of our dear party.
“Before that decision is made, something requires time that we must do immediately. If indeed you are supporting a candidate in APC, you are supporting Governor Yahaya Bello, you must go out now and begin the door to door mobilisation for registration. Go door to door and begin the campaign for voter registration.
‘The APC women wing will be coming all out, will be going to states to mobilise women to go and register as members. Remember, if they do not have their voter card, our work is useless because even if they give any of our aspirants the tickets, it will not amount to (victory). So we must take our time now to do door door mobilisation”.
She also said that one beautiful thing about APC is that the aspirants that are coming out for the presidential tickets are not in any way close to average, arguing that they are high above and are far above board as there is not one that is not good.
“Let us pray for our leaders. Let us pray for our country. Let us pray that the best leader will emerge victorious in our next convention. That is where we can go with our full shoulders to the polls.
“But one thing is certain, APC will not give its tickets to a presidential candidate who will not favour women. We know our President and all the glass ceilings he has broken. You know our party chairman and all the glass ceilings he has broken for women; giving us free forms”, she said.
Speaking earlier, the Kogi State Secretary to State Government (SSG), Folashade Ayoade, said Bello loves women and cares for them in his government.
She added: “I need to just let you know of the fact that Yahaya Bello loves women, he gives us a place of honour. In Kogi State as we stand from 2016 to date, I have been the SSG, a woman. Not just that, the head of service has been a woman. We have a pioneer pension commission, in all the 21 local government areas, all the vice-chairmen are women.
“I need to let you know that His Excellency loves to put women in places of honour. He likes to give us relevance.”
Also speaking, the Director, Women Mobilisation, Hope 23, Yahaya Bello Campaign Organisation, Zara Gift Onyinye, said their mission was to solicit support of the women leader for their candidate, Yahaya Bello, whom she said is also an APC aspirants in the coming presidential race.
“They are just like we have been saying and we have enumerated earlier, a candidate who supports a woman will definitely stand the chance of winning this election because women form the highest number of voters and across Nigeria and they also know that if they support that person, that person who has shown that he has the women in his heart, he has love for women, he creates enabling environment for women, he gave them that opportunity to sell and that person is Yahaya Bello and all the women have shown that he has indicated interest as the person who supported them, that same person they are going to support and so that stands him out of all the aspirants going for this election.”
