Political parties that do not have structures on the ground should not present women as candidates during elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission warned on Tuesday.

The commission said that being a candidate should not be the only factor that should be taken into consideration but also a strong support base.

INEC National Commissioner (Election and Party Monitoring), Prof. Anthonia Okosi – Simbina, stated these in Abuja during a consultative meeting on “Gender roadmap for political parties”, organised by Nigerian Women Trust Fund with funding by United States Department of State.

She also expressed concern over the low participation of women in the November 16 governorship elections in Bayelsa and Kogi States, saying Nigeria does not yet operate a proportional representation system.

The INEC chief criticised “a situation where a new political party without structures and with people who are not on the ground would say they gave women positions to run for (elections).”

“Where is the other support? It is not just to say I was a candidate. Where is the party that is backing you? And before a party says it is backing you, it must also be on the ground. We know what being on the ground means,” she stated.

The Chief Executive of NWTF, Mufuliat Fijabi, said the meeting was put in place as a response to the low representation of women in politics in Nigeria.

According to her, the roadmap should be developed by political parties to praticalise the theories in the constitution of parties on gender which, she said, were rarely implemented.

“The long years of patriarchy has affected the level of unity amongst women because of the erroneous belief that only men can be leaders and women cannot be part of decision-making processes.

“Women should come together and network strongly ahead of all elections in Nigeria. Men should also support women to mainstream inclusion in the democratic process,” she stated.

Okosi – Simbina added, “Let us insist that parliament will make a law that will ensure that political parties have women candidates, not just for the small positions, even though I agree that we should start from the low. So, I think that these are the issues we need to look at.

“For us at the commission, we are prepared to do anything within the law. When nominations were being submitted for the 2019 general elections, I heard stories, received phone calls from women that ‘oh, we had our primaries, I was the person that won’.

“We were sitting in this Nigeria when some people went to parliament to go and change the law such that any submission that is made to INEC cannot be changed by INEC.

“The principal reason why that law was changed was that they saw that when they come to our office, they give our staff the nomination, our staff connive and they change it. That was why this thing was made.

“But now that it has been made and I receive such calls, what can I do? The commission is limited in terms of the nominations that are presented by political parties and that is why I said we can only do what is within the law.”

The INEC National Commissioner stated that despite the number of meetings and workshops on gender equity, nothing had been achieved by political parties.