Ondo governorship aspirant tasks women on forth-coming polls

THE All Progressives Congress (APC) women in Ondo State have been challenged to deploy their entire resources to ensure that the party wins the forthcoming governorship election in the state.

A chieftain of the party who is also a gubernatorial aspirant under the platform of the APC in this year’s governorship poll in the state, Chief Bukola Adetula made the call at two different fora where he was hosted by the women leaders from both the Northern and Central districts of the party in the state.

At both fora, Chief Adetula who spoke on the strategic role of women in electoral victory and in good governance commended their initiative for organizing the fora; for showing concern for good governance and for crying out loud against the worsening plight of women, the collapsed infrastructure and the poor standard of living in the state.

According to him, women as mothers, as wives, as teachers, as traders, as devoted worshippers and the ones involved in inter-marriages across senatorial and party lines are natural agents of change, stressing that now was the time to deploy them because the state needs a change for good.

Responding to a demand by the women that the aspirant should pick a female as his running-mate, Adetula noted that their demand is legitimate because according to him, “No position in the state including that of the governor is the birth right of any sex, group or class so to that extent the demand is noted, but since it is a position that is being eyed by both sexes, whoever wants to get it must work for it and in this case I enjoin you my mothers to work harder for it, to convince everybody, including your arch critics that you deserve it.”

Continuing Adetula said, “You as our mothers, as our wives and as our sisters you are the closest to us (Men), you know when to lobby, how to lobby and who to lobby, those men that may be interested you have all it takes to know them and lobby them, so I wish you well.

“It will certainly become history if and when a woman becomes a deputy governor in the state and it will gladden my heart if it happens under my watch, my late father in his grave too will click the glass to toast the celebration, but it is not going to drop from heaven, whoever wants it must work for it.”

The first meeting conveyed by the Ondo North Senatorial APC women leader, Alhaja Fausat Kazeem and held at Iyire near Owo was presided over by the women leader who told the gathering that the women leadership had invited the aspirant, Adetula to the meeting to give him the opportunity to unveil to women in the district, his agenda for their elevation.

The second gathering, which took place at the party’s state secretariat, Akure was called by the Central senatorial women leadership and was presided over by its chairperson, Mrs. Lola Sessay.

Mrs Sessay going down the memory lane lamented that women in the state have not been well treated by male politicians, accusing them of employing ‘use and dump’ syndrome, adding that they were no longer enthusiastic to work for men seeking political offices.

The aspirant re-assured them that he has come to seek political office primarily to use it as an instrument for change and end the visible cases of marginalisation particularly against the women-folk in the state.

He admonished the women not consider themselves as cheap commodities or as juveniles that any politician could push here and there, reminding them that their power lies in their voting strength which he said surpassed that of men and charged them to turn it into a bargaining tool.

While urging the women and electorates in the state not to mortgage the future of their children by voting on the basis of material gains, he urged them to put an end to the politics of ‘cash and carry’ which he noted had been the order of the day in the state in recent past and lamented that it had done a lot of harm to the development of the state and the deliverance of the dividends of democracy to the people.

Adetula reminded them of reports concerning the last governorship election in the state where voters, especially women were induced with money even as low as N1000.00 and N500.00, saying that it was degrading and an insult to the integrity of women.

He urged them to replicate in Ondo state the way Nigerians voted their conscience in the last presidential election in the country when they voted for President Muhammadu Buhari despite the fact that many of them were induced with money to vote against their conscience.

At the Ondo North parley, Adetula assured them that women would have more slots in his cabinet and in all other appointive posts if he carried the day

The aspirant stunned the women who were nonetheless delighted, when he decided to address them in Yoruba language as against the general practice of using English language.

He later urged them to continue in that tradition of conducting their meetings in Yoruba, pledging that if he becomes governor of the state, most of the affairs of government would be conducted in Yoruba, adding that he would equally encourage the state House of Assembly to adopt same.