Nigeria needs law to gives women, youths percentage in electoral position – Peter Obi

By Abubakar Yunusa 

Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi have stressed the need for laws that give women and youth a percentage in electoral positions and everybody in Nigeria.

Obi stated this at the program, which was organized by the Voice of Woman Empowerment Foundation with the support of the MacArthur Foundation, tagged VOW22 conference and Awards, in Abuja yesterday.

The 6th edition of the Voice of Women (Vow) conference with the theme Towards building Nigeria, “An agenda setting for an inclusive and accountable Nigeria.

He said “There should be a law that gives women and youth a percentage in electoral positions and everybody in Nigeria”.

He said if we want Nigeria to move forward, think we have to surround ourselves with 50 percent of women because they are very critical in building the nation and I will invest in them.

Women are not going to be there for just position sake, but they will be an integral part of my decision making I know Former Minister of Education, Okonji Iweala who cried to all of the 36 governors to save excess crude oil, she knew that they would be a day like this but Governors refused and shared money.

Speaking further, he said, “Today with all the flood and everything, we won’t be surprised that soon a bag of rice will be 50,000. That is over minimum wage. What we are going through today is a cumulative effect of leadership failure.

“We are now about to pick a new leadership and we must go beyond all those considerations of storage and think about the future of this country and we cannot do it without women in the driving seat.

“We need to make a law giving women and youths a percentage in all electoral positions and every position in Nigeria. Like it’s in Bangladesh. Today Bangladesh is a country that is self-sufficient because of the role women play.

“Don’t vote for me because I’m from the southeast, don’t vote for me because I’m an Igbo man. Next year’s election should not be based on tribe, ethnicity, or religion, it should also not be based on ‘my turn’. It should be based on character, competence, capacity, and commitment to start changing Nigeria, he said.

 Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu,Tinubu, who represents by his vice, Senator Kashim Shettima said “Asiwaju administration will be a government that will be friendly to our women, and most importantly, they are the backbone of our society because they constitute over 50% to our total population.