No fewer than 40 female aspirants selected from different political parties in Kwara State have been trained and equipped with the wherewithal to prepare for the 2027 polls.
The aspirants received the support under a programme themed “From Foot Soldiers to Front Runners.”
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The three-day training took place in Ilorin between Monday and Wednesday.
Organisers of the programme tasked the participants to familiarise themselves with the process, organisation and structure of political parties before throwing their hats into the ring.
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The training was at the instance of Women Environment and Youth Development Initiative (WOYODEV), a nongovernmental organization, with support from the UN Women and funding from the European Union.
On the sidelines of the training, the Executive Director of WOYODEV, Tosin Apiriola-Ajayi, said the project holding in three states in the country including Kwara was targeted at women to make them politically savvy and participate actively as contestants.
She disclosed that female political aspirants from local communities were also incorporated into the training, thus preparing them for the future political contest.
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The WOYODEV leader added that the objective of the training was to equip the participants with the practical skills to build and run an election campaign and position themselves as viable flag-bearers of political parties.
“In total, we are training 120 selected across the three states. So, for each state, we are training 40. In Kwara, we have 40 women for the training for the next three days. We had about six political parties in attendance and had participants from Baruten, Kaiama, Patigi, Edu, Ekiti and the whole of Kwara,” Mrs Apiriola-Ajayi said.
She said the essence of the training was to transform the female political aspirants to candidates of political parties and emerge winners in the 2027 electoral contest.
The WOYODEV Executive Director said, “So, the overall goal of this gathering is to transform female political parties’ aspirants from passive foot soldiers into empowered, strategic and confident contestants in Nigeria 2027 general elections.
“This project started March this year. We are going to run the project for the next two years till after general elections. It is a process. We want to work with women from now till after the general elections and the project is being done in three states; Enugu, Lagos and Kwara.
“For this quarter, we are training female political members that will stand to contest between now and 2027 general elections, not those that will be foot soldiers.”
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In her remarks, the state Commissioner for Women Affairs, Afolashade Oluwakemi, said the initiative transcends economic independence for women, saying that it was about empowering them to increase their political participation in the country.
She applauded WOYODEV for organizing the event, which focused on empowering women and girls through practical skills, knowledge and leadership development.
The Deputy Chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) in the state, Lukman Ajisafe, who took participants through a session, challenged them to be circumspect of the processes required to stand as candidate of political parties.
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