Yiaga Africa has raised the alarm that “there are only three female chairmanship candidates and eight vice-chairmanship candidates while there are 39 female councillorship candidates for the FCT area council polls.”
A board member of the organisation, Ezenwa Nwangwu, noted this Friday during its pre-election press conference and community outreach in Kuje area council ahead of the FCT Area council elections.
According to her, women representation is abysmally low, with female candidacy at 8.87%.
He lamented that four political parties – Action Alliance (AA), All Progressives Congress (APC), Labour Party (LP) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had no female candidates vying for seats.
On the Inclusion of women and Persons with Disability in the Election, he said INEC had committed to providing Braille ballot and magnifying glasses for the visually impaired and albinos, respectively.
“For instance, five of the six area councils have women as the electoral officers. Yiaga Africa expects that more women will be involved as presiding officers at the polling units.
“ INEC should ensure the INEC Result Portal is up and functioning to enable the upload of polling units level results on election day for citizens to track their votes,” he said.
