A women advocacy group, Women Initiative for Family Economy (WIFE) is organizing a national interfaith prayer session for peaceful and successful general elections in 2023.
The national president of WIFE, Ambassador Aisha Abdulkadir, disclosed this in a pre-event briefing in Abuja at the weekend.
She said the national prayers will hold on Thursday, September 1, 2022 at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja.
She said the event is part of the WIFE’s series of civic engagements in ensuring peaceful and transparent general elections scheduled for February 2023.
Ambassador Aisha said prominent Muslim and Christian clerics, interfaith advocates, peace activists, and some presidential candidates and their running mates are expected at the event.
She said WIFE, registered with Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) in 2018, has been at the forefront of advancing and enhancing the economic status of women in Nigeria, and Northern Nigeria in particular through macro-economic empowerment schemes, skills acquisition initiatives, socio-economic counselling, among others.
WIFE, she said, has been engaging and sensitizing women across the country in the last couple of months on the importance of collecting their permanent voter cards (PVCs) ahead of the 2023 general elections.
Ambassador Aisha said, “The role of women in politics can’t be overemphasized. It is on record that during the 2019 general election, women accounted for 47.14 percent (39.6 million) of the 84 million registered voters nationwide.”
She said the official data from the just concluded INEC fresh registration indicate that of the total 10,139,247 new voters, women accounted for 5,116,855, with 1,190,017 of them housewives.
“We have spent over four years empowering women financially, and it is only good if the same women are politically empowered by encouraging them to fully exercise their civic responsibilities by getting their PVCs and voting credible leaders in the forthcoming elections,” she said.
The WIFE convener, however, said all this is impossible without peace and stability. “That is why we are convening this national interfaith prayer session to seek God Almighty to protect our country and our leaders from both internal and external detractors,” she said.
Ambassador Aisha said over the years and through her financial inclusion advocacy in the 19 northern states and Abuja, women and their children account for the largest demographic group of victims resulting from any form of conflict- be it religious, communal, or even political. “That is why we are bringing our famous religious leaders from the two prominent faiths to pray for the country and for a peaceful transition programme,” she said.
WIFE is a registered not-for-profit non-governmental organization that works for financial inclusion of women, especially in the rural areas and urban slums, through skills acquisition programs, financial intervention, among others.
