The Resident Electoral Commissioner in Kwara state, Garba Attahiru Madami, said in Ilorin that women have outnumbered their male counterparts in the Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs), registrarion excercise in Kwara state.
Madami, however, expressed reservation that the idea of having woman president in the country remains a mirage because women were never in support of one of them.
The REC stated this when he paid a courtesy visit to the Director General of the Michael Imoudu National Institute for Labour Studies (MINILS), Comrade Issa Aremu, at the headquarters of the Institute in Ilorin.
He noted that people have been lobbying the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, Amina Mohammed, to join the presidential race on account of her transparency, hard work and intelligence but regretted that she would eventually be pulled down.
But the Independent National Electoral Commissioner chief expressed delight that the number of women on voter’s register showed that they had significantly outnumbered their men counterpart.
He urged women to unite, form a strong force and prepare themselves for the nation’s leadership.
Madami said, “In Kwara state alone, the number of registered voters for women had outnumbered that of the men to over 3000. We also need the youth to come on board. So, the youth combined with women, that is 70 percent.
“Already, people are lobbying the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, Amina Mohammed, to contest the office of President, because she is transparent, hard working, intelligent.
“But you know the problem we have with women is that they will be pulling her down. They will not come together to support women-candidates”.
In his remarks, the MINILS Director General, Issa Aremu, applauded the National Assembly for amending the electoral act, which allows direct primary for political parties and electronic transmission of election results from polling units.
He noted that INEC was becoming one of the fastest growing institutions in Africa with its breakthroughs in recent elections conducted in parts of the country.
Aremu added that democracy has come to stay in Africa with almost 23 years of uninterrupted civilian administration in Nigeria.
He spoke of the readiness of MINILS under his leadership to be part of the election monitoring team to further guarantee the credibility of the nation’s elections.
