The Kwara state chapter of the United Peoples Party (UPP) has explained reason for choosing a female contestant as its candidate for the 2019 gubernatorial election coming up next year in the state.
The UPP picked deaconess Comfort Yinka as its gubernatorial candidate for the race with Muibi Muibat Aduke of the (APA) and Rukayat Toyin Tijani of the (MPN) as the other two among the thirty-two political parties that are active in the state.
Over seven political parties in the state selected female candidates as their running mate for the election.
Kwara State with a strong religious affinity among the people has not produce a female as governor or deputy governor since inception in 1967.
But speaking to National Pilot on the choice of the party, despite being aware of the female hurdle in the state, the UPP chairman, Abu Dave Ifabiyi told this medium that the decision was to encourage female political participation in the state which has gained momentum recently.
According to him, there has been this clamor that women should come on board. In our party, we feel the only way we can encourage them to do that is to provide the opportunity for them so that they can contest.
“We made the ticket free for women to encourage their participation because if you find out the number of women contesting for elective positions in Nigeria most of the times are men and when it come to the issue of voting, the women vote more than the men”, he added.
He said the party hope to leverage on the ongoing sensitisation in respect of women participation in politics and to sell the party’s candidate, Deaconess Comfort Yinka Kayode to the public.
On the issue of partnership with other political parties in the state, Ifabiyi said the UPP will “definitely consider working in partnership with other parties for the election if approached” adding that “this is a state of harmony and the party will always promote any action that will promote harmony in the state”.
He said “You may not by aware that our party is friendly enough even to the physically challenged people. We gave them free ticket and we have a lot of them that are contesting the 2019 election. We have one in Kwara and a lot of them all over the country. We gave them free ticket to contest because they are part and parcel of the society. That is a bonus on our part as a party”, he submitted.
On the adoption by the national leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari as the party’s presidential candidate, the UPP chairman said the party is only adopting the president.
He said the structure of the party across the federation including Kwara state still remain adding that UPP will contest the elections in all various position from state to the national level.
