than 380 candidates to contest the February 28 governor-ship poll in
29 states of the federation.
The detailed statistics dis-playing the comprehensive lists with the
age, party and aca-demic qualifications of the can-didates on the
INEC's official web site, further revealed that states like Imo, Kano,
Sokoto and Zamfara had the highest number of governorship candi-dates,
adding that while Imo and Kano had 22 candidates, Sokoto had 21 and
Zamfara had 20.
According to the list, states like Enugu had 19 governor-ship
candidates, Delta and Riv-ers with 18 candidates trailed the top list
of states with the highest number of governor-ship candidates. Jigawa,
Yobe, Cross River, Benue, Katsina, Nasarawa, and Ebonyi states top
list of states with single digit of candidates.
The list also showed that Jigawa had four candidates, Yobe and Cross
River had five governorship candidates, while others like Plateau had
six can-didates, Benue and Nasarawa had eight candidates
respec-tively. Ebonyi tops list of states with lowest number with nine
candidates.
Further breakdown of the cleared candidates showed that while 25
female candidates were given the nod to battle their male-dominated
counter-parts, no fewer than 60 females were picked as deputy
gover-nors in all the states.
Although some states espe-cially the southern part of the country
proved to be female friendly, however, some north-ern states like
Katsina, Kebbi, Niger, Plateau, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara paraded
majorly male governorship and deputy candidates with Zamfara prov-ing
to be the worst gender sensi-tive state with only one female deputy
out of the 20 aspirants.
There was obvious display of gross violation of the 35 per cent
affirmative action as only one of the major political parties conceded
the governorship slot to a female candidate.
The breakdown further showed that the political parties in Enugu State
proved the most gender sensitive as they paraded the highest number of
female candidates. The state has three governorship and six female
deputy governorship candidates though none of the major par-ties were
courageous enough to field a female governorship candidate.
Other states trailing Enugu in giving female politicians sense of
belonging include Delta, Ebonyi, Niger and Kwara with two female
governorship candi-dates, just as the political parties in Kano,
Taraba, Lagos, Sokoto and Rivers states fielded only one female
candidate each with the All Progressives Congress (APC) surprisingly
picking a female governorship candidate, Senator Aisha Jumai Alhassan,
in Taraba State.
Meanwhile, the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) has
stated that it is yet to take a final deci-sion on whether to send
election observers to monitor elections in the volatile North-East
geo-political zone, stressing that it would depend on INEC's re-sponse
to certain factors.
Revealing that the team had tabled certain concerns to the electoral
body, it however, ex-pressed determination to part-ner with the
commission for a successful conduct of the elec-tion.
Head of Democracy and Good Governance, Mr. Eye-san Okorodudu, who
spoke to newsmen after the ECOWAS election monitoring team paid a
courtesy visit to the INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, in Abuja,
said they had tabled some of the concerns they gath-ered in
consultations with some stakeholders.
--TheSun
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