FCT minister, Akinjide, kicks-off Jonathan re-election campaign
- AfricCon News
Africcon; Nigerian Talk Report:
Africcon Media – News
From: Africcon Media – Nigeria
Ms. Akinjide said the president is the most women-friendly in Nigeria’s history.
In an apparent campaign effort, the Minister of State for the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Jumoke Akinjide, at the weekend, described President Goodluck Jonathan as the most woman-friendly leader in Nigeria’s history, urging Nigerian women to work to secure a second term for the president.
Ms. Akinjide, who spoke at her Aremo, Ibadan constituency office, said her stance is informed by the number of women currently serving in the Federal Executive Council of the nation.
“President Goodluck Jonathan’s cabinet has thirteen women as Ministers, the United Nations’ representative, the Chief Justice of Nigeria- also being women. He has been very religious in the allocation of 35 per cent share to women in all ways, and he has promised to make it 50/50 by 2015 if re-elected,” she said, urging all Nigerian women to work towards securing a second term for the president.
The president has yet to admit he is standing for office in 2015, repeatedly denying hints he will run. His aides say the president is “focused” on delivering his current mandate. The minister’s remarks appear to unsettle such claims.
Ms. Akinjide, a member of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Oyo state, gathered party faithful at the constituency office where she distributed thousands of bags of fertilizer to farmers in all the 33 local government areas of the state, as well as some tractors to the Ogbomoso, Ibarapa and Oke Ogun II zones of the state.
She said the fertilizers are to be given to farmers in every local government of the state free of charge, and regardless of party affiliations.
“These must be given directly to farmers. It is not to be sold or given to politicians who will sell them. I don’t want anybody to be discriminated upon in the distribution,” she said.
“Please, give it to everybody, irrespective of political affiliation, I mean, including ACN. Those, who did not vote for us might through this benefit, vote for us in the next elections.
“The tractors, which are also free of charge, this time around, will be given to people in Ogbomoso, Ibarapa and Oke Ogun. Whenever we get to power, we are not going to discriminate in our welfare package to our people,” she told the people.
Ms. Akinjide also urged her guests to work together and ensure that the ruling Action Congress of Nigeria is unseated in the next governorship election in the state.
“We are grassroots politicians and so I am advising that all of us should be united so that we can take government from the Action Congress of Nigeria or the APC. Our government is a party of many people. It is a party, which recognizes the masses of the grassroots, market women, civil servants, taxi drivers, plumbers, and others,” Ms. Akinjide noted.
Also speaking on the occasion, Taofeek Arapaja, the former deputy governor of the state and current Nigerian Ambassador to Jordan, extolled what he described as the political and social values of Ms. Akinjide, saying she is not only a Minister, but a woman of virtue, a mother and a grassroots mobilizer.
He implored all members of the state PDP to support the minister in her effort to stabilize the party in the state and the country at large.
