The Women Initiative for Family Economy (WIFE), an advocacy group seeking financial and political inclusion for women, is organising national prayers for peaceful and successful general elections in 2023.
This was disclosed by the National President of WIFE, Ambassador Aisha Abdulkadir, in a pre-event news briefing in Abuja on Monday.
The interfaith national prayers will be held on Thursday, September 1, 2022 at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja, she said.
She said the event is part of the WIFE’s series of civic engagements in ensuring peaceful and transparent 2023 general elections.
Ambassador Aisha said prominent Muslim and Christian clerics, interfaith advocates, peace activists, and some presidential candidates and their running mates have been scheduled to attend the event.
She said WIFE, registered with Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) in 2018, has been at the forefront of advancing and enhancing the financial fortunes of women in Nigeria through macro-economic empowerment schemes, skills acquisition initiatives, socio-economic counselling, among others.
The WIFE convener said, the NGO has been engaging and sensitizing women across the country in the last couple of months on the importance of collecting their permanent voter cards (PVCs) ahead of the 2023 general elections.
Ambassador Aisha said, “The role of women in politics can’t be overemphasized. It is on record that during the 2019 general election, women accounted for 47.14 percent (39.6 million) of the 84 million registered voters nationwide.”
She said the official data from the just concluded INEC fresh registration indicate that of the total 10,139,247 new voters, women accounted for 5,116,855, with 1,190,017 of them housewives.
“We have spent over four years empowering women financially, and it is only good if the same women are politically empowered by encouraging them to fully exercise their civic responsibilities by getting their PVCs and voting credible leaders in the forthcoming elections,” she said.
