Mrs. Ngozi Okoh, wife of the Primate and Anglican Archbishop of Abuja, has said that women of the Anglican Communion would participate fully in the 2015 general elections.
Okoh, President of the Mothers’ Union, said this on Sunday in Abuja in an interview at the end of a two-day national conference and launch of the Anglican women magazine.
She said that the women have been duly sensitised to the importance of participating in the elections and they were poised to take active part in the exercise.
She said that the women have also been admonished that their role was not only to participate in the elections, but also to ensure that their families also participated.
“We have told them that they must come out and register for those who haven’t registered and for those who have not collected their voters’ card; they must make sure they do so.
“We enjoined INEC to make sure that whenever they bring out dates for either registration or issuing of voters’ cards, they have to make it public.
“They have to tell the people in advance so that they will be aware and turn out.
“We have told our women that everybody; the women, the children who are of age, their husbands, their grannies must turn out in mass to fulfil this laudable function,” she said.
She said that the church recognised its role as an agent of empowerment and poverty eradication and as such was making frantic effort geared towards women and youth empowerment.
She acknowledged that the role of job creation was not for the government alone as the church, other religious institutions and individuals had their roles to play.
“The church is trying to equip our youths and our women; you know the youths are the future of our tomorrow so we are trying to equip them.
“We give them some capitals to put up one or two businesses.
“Where possible, we find them jobs and the same thing goes for our women, we are equipping them.’’
On security, while commending the government for efforts in defeating insurgency, Okoh also called on women to wake up to their responsibilities as agents of peace.
She said that the woman has to train her children, teach them the right things to do, make sure that they go to school, read their books and write their exams the right way.
Okoh said that the woman must make sure that the child does not purchase question papers outside so that they will read well and pass their exams.
“When they finish from the university, if there are no jobs available, jobs can be created, we simply have to sit down and re-orientate ourselves on the way we do things.
“It is not only the Federal Government that should provide jobs, we can equally provide these jobs but we have not started thinking about them,” she said.
She called on the men to continue to support their wives in the discharge of their duties.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that part of activities for this year’s conference includes health talk and fund raising for the construction of a table water processing facility.
Source: NAN
