As the 2019 elections gather momentum, a Kaduna-based NGO, Empowering Women for Excellence Initiative (EWEI), says it will mobilise women to actively be involved in the elections.
According to it, if women leverage on their unique advantage in communities, the elections will count for them.
Safiya Garba, the founder and programme director of the NGO, made the disclosure during the NGO’s Annual General Meeting and 10th Anniversary Celebration, in Kaduna on Saturday.
“The measure is necessary to ensure that women play a critical role in driving democracy.
“It is very disturbing that at the National Assembly, only nine out of the 109 Senators are women and only 27 out of the 360 members are women at the House of Representative.
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“The situation is very disturbing at the state level as none of the 36 governors in the country is a woman , in spite of women constituting almost half of the country’s population.
“To change the tide, we intend to apply new approaches, strategies and leverage on unexploited avenues to enable women use their influence on networking, mobilisation and voting power effectively to ensure adequate participation,” she said.
Garba explained that EWEI was founded in 2008 to invest in human capital by providing girls and women the opportunities and resources to improve their welfare, professionalism and well-being.
She said that some of the objectives of the NGO was to inspire girls and women to aim for excellence through capacity building and mentoring, as well as encourage girl child education.
