Source: Leadership
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), said on Monday in Lagos, that the commission was ready to achieve gender balance across the various cadres of its personnel.
The National Commissioner in charge of election observers, Dr Ishmael Igbani said this at a two-day Technical Review of the Draft INEC Gender Policy in conjunction with the Democratic Governance for Development (DGD).
"The problem of under representation of women is a universal phenomenon and the UN and European Union and the Commonwealth have had their own gender policies.
"We in INEC think that we should contribute our own national gender policy by ensuring that women get equality in the electoral process," Igbani said.
He noted that inequality did not only exist in political parties but also in religious and economic organisations.
He pledged that the commission would ensure women were carried along in all its activities.
Igbani said the commission's aim was to improve on the 35 per cent Beijing affirmative action.
He said: "What we intend to do is if political parties have five women, we want to tell them to increase it by one".
Igbani urged organisations to ensure that every man and woman got their fair share of positions.
He added that the commission would report any political party that failed to carry women along to the National Assembly.
He therefore, solicited the support of civil society organisatiions saying INEC, alone, could not do it.
The Project Director, United Nations Development Project (UNDP), Dr Mourtada Deme, expressed happiness at INEC's effort to carry women along in its activities.
Deme, who was represented by Hajia Mufuliat Fijabi, noted that the commission's action was in line with the national gender policy.
"We call on INEC to do more in strengthening the representation of women in governance even though it did well in 2011 election.
"We believe that as this gender policy reaches its final stage, it will improve and address gender gap," she said.