As the political parties scout for vice presidential candidates for their flag-bearers, the Peoples’ Democratic Party candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubarkar has been advised to pick a female candidate to win over the Nigerian women voters who constitute a larger segment of voters in the country.
A young activist Ijoma Peter Obi in a letter sent to the PDP presidential flag-bearer and copied to some PDP chieftains-Dr. Ayu Iyorchia, national chairman of the PDP, the Atiku Campaign Organization, Senator Dino Melaye, the PDP publicity secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, Osita Chidoka-former Aviation minister and Dr. El Mo Victor, national coordinator Atiku Support Organization, said picking a woman as running mate will not only put the former vice president on historical records but also win women over and help him clinch the ticket to Aso Rock.
He drew Atiku’s attention to the fact that from available records, women represent 47 percent of voters in the country but are very poorly represented in political leadership positions.
In addition, getting a woman on board will put the PDP on the map of public organisations sensitive to inclusion, the current global campaign for good governance.
Peter Obi expressed confidence that Atiku has the experience and disposition to bring all segments and sections in the country together and putting a woman, a South Southerner, would be the game changer.
The full text of the letter read:
His Excellency
Atiku Abubakar, GCON
Appeal To Consider Picking A Woman As Running Mate
His Excellency Sir, I congratulate you on your victory in the just concluded People’s Democratic Party presidential primaries and emerging the candidate of the party for the 2023 presidential general election, it is my hope that you’ll use your experience as former vice president and leading business mogul to transform our nation and revive the interest of millions of the youths that the country can work again, because I am confident that you’ll win this election come 2023, above all more so that you represent a rallying point for the unity of the country without regard to ethnicity, religion and regional differences.
I sincerely believe that you represent the hope that Nigerians yearns for, that is why in 2019 despite the fears, intimidation and persecution, without even a support from my state government (Rivers State), I was the only AD-HOC Registration Area Technician (RATECH) after working with INEC during the 2019 general election that volunteered and took the risk to come to the Election Petition Tribunal at Appeal Court in Abuja to testify under oath against our sitting president Muhammadu Buhari, the All Progressives Congress and INEC that there was electronic collation of results in your favour. I did so out of patriotism for my country, because I believed that you have what it takes to make Nigeria work again. Even now I have unapologetically continued to drive issue-based campaigns in my neighborhood and within my social interactions both online and offline to drum support for you in the forthcoming general election.
However, there are pertinent concerns I wish to bring to your notice, the forthcoming general election are very critical to the future of this country and for this reason I hereby humbly suggest that you pick a woman as your running mate and hopefully break the record of making the first vice president in Nigeria.
I have confidence that with a woman as your running mate, you’ll have increased goodwill and attraction from their overwhelming population. This is because women make up 47.14% (39,598,645) out of 84,004.084 registered voters nationwide, that is, almost half of the voting population. Sadly, only a pocket of them have the opportunity to partake in political leadership, for instance, out of 360 members of the House of Representatives, only 18 are women, which is about 4.61% and out of 109 senators only 7.34% are women.
Some of the reasons why I trust that if you select a woman as your running mate, it would massively increase your chances of wooing voters nationwide and especially from the southern region include:
Firstly, there is an increasing attention for women to get involved in politics, reports have it that despite pockets of women participation in politics, a large margin of women population do not vote during election because they don’t share a sense of belonging in leadership, perhaps due to the perceived negligence and low sense of acceptability by the male who make up 90% of the leadership space.
Secondly, Nigeria has never had a female vice president, it would be record breaking and first of its kind, if you consider a woman from South-South particularly, to run with you for the office in 2023. Aside from the goodwill that this idea promises, it is on record that women in politics provide more support and less of acrimony for their boss than the male counterparts.
However, also to gain attention of the youths which make up about 70% of the voting populations, especially in the southern region, then I suggest you take into consideration these two most important factors before choosing a running mate, these are;
The running mate should be a youth, someone within 30-40yrs of age.
The running mate could be a woman, sourced from the South South geo-political zone.
Your Excellency Sir, if you can look into and through this recommendation and consider this options as an important parameter by carrying out your own assessment with pertinent stakeholders and seeing to it that you have a woman as running mate, then I strongly believe that the general election would be an easy walkover. I look forward to your implementation of this recommendation and hopefully your inauguration as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 2023 after the general election. Thank you and remain blessed.
Yours sincerely,
Ijoma Peter Obi
