The All Progressives Congress, APC, have concluded arrangements to hold its south-south women rally in Calabar, the capital of Cross River State.
The rally, which is slated to hold on Saturday, November 26th, 2022 will be attended by the wife of the Nigerian President, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, the senator representing Lagos Central Senatorial District, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, the APC national women leader, Dr. Betta Edu amongst other top female political leaders.
According to the wife of the governor of Cross River State, Dr. Linda Ayade, the essence of the rally is for the women to jointly reiterate their support for the APC presidential candidate, Senator Bola Tinubu and his running mate, Kashim Shettima.
Dr. Ayade said, “the women of the south-south geopolitical zone are coming out enmass to tell the entire nation that we are in support of the presidential candidate of our great party, the APC Senator Bola Tinubu and Kassim Shettima.”
She continued, “come Saturday, November 26th, 2022, all the women from the 6 states of the south-south zone are going to gather here in Calabar to show our support. It is the women that play the politics and have the numbers. It is the women that say it and it gets done.”
Speaking about the participation of Cross River women in politics, Dr. Linda Ayade noted that across the 18 local government areas, women form the larger voting strength, which would be evident come 2023 general elections.
She explained that certain sterling qualities of the APC presidential candidates such as his abundant wisdom, political experience, visionary with the capacity to move Nigeria higher on the global economy as well as being gender friendly.
Ayade stated, “we all want progress in Nigeria and he has a progressive heart. He is one of those, who will definitely change this country for good. For us, he is a very gender friendly person and we look forward to when women will be given a chance to be able to show that yes women are capable of handling situations.”
Ayade further disclosed that the APC presidential candidate has promised to increase women’s appointive positions beyond 50 percent affirmative action.
“Our presidential candidate emphasised that if voted into power, he will make sure that the aspirations of women to attain 35 percent affirmation would be increased. He promised us that he is going to go beyond 50 percent. That was his promise to us and we are definitely going to hold him to that promise,” she stressed.
She added, “I believe that if he wins the forth coming election, Nigerian women will be generally happy for it despite that he and his running mate are not women, we shall get a chunk of that.”
Confidence Okwuchi
