Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WDF) has expressed concern that the number of women in parliaments has continued to decline in the country .
The Programme Manager of the foundation, Olumide Olaniyan in an interview stated that Nigeria stands at the lower rung of the ladder with just 3 women elected into the Senate .
At its Media and Agenda Setting -Holding Political Parties to Accountability on Inclusive Practices of their constitutions and manifestos in Abuja on Wednesday, he lamented that it is extremely poorest in Africa because political parties are not operating with their own policies and manifestos.
He said a lot of them have plans in their constitutions to include women in their manifestos but they are not doing it in practice.
He further said a lot of political parties make promises and do campaigns before the election and after the election nobody ask questions about their manifestos.
He said the meeting is key to draw attention for citizens to ask question as necessary and ensure that government serve the people and not the other way round.
According to him, the media needs to become more inclusive and task political parties to be opened to all small and bigger parties because they all have equal space to discuss their manifestos.
“Citizens should hold the politicians accountable and take it beyond people living in the cities alone and ensure that people living in some hard to reach communities are able to hold political parties accountable to what they have promised and after the post-election, they should be able to deliver .
“We are working with the National Institute for Development Studies (NILDS) and we are working on a research to look at the practices of the 18 political parties and key recommendations will guide us in some of the upcoming activities,” he said.
Also, in a paper on Rethinking Political Parties Policy and Practices: Media agenda setting as a gateway of active citizenry, the Public Affairs Analyst, Development Consultant , Jide Ojo said on the area of interest to the media, there is need for monitoring of policies ,programmes and projects of political parties such as Peoples Democratic Institute (PDI) like IRI and NDI.
