A Women’s group, Women Situation Room Nigeria (WSRN), has called for peaceful governorship election in Osun on Saturday, July 16.
The group’s Assistant Programme Manager, Jane Siesi, made the call at a news conference on Thursday in Osogbo ahead of the election.
Siesi urged effective participation of women groups through sensitisations and mobilization.
She urged security agencies to uphold their duties of protection of lives and property before, during and after the election.
Siesi also requested the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to uphold their duty of impartiality and fairness.
“We kindly request that INEC uphold their duty of impartiality, fairness and ensure that interest of persons with disabilities are protected with enabling environment for them to vote in the election.
“Election administration and arrival of materials should be done in a timely manner,’’ she said.
According to her, the two rapid assessment conducted in the state and reports from the media monitoring, revealed that the state had been relatively peaceful.
Siesi also said there had been reported low sexual, physical and financial violence incidences.
She said that the group would deploy 60 women observers in all the 30 local government areas of the state to observe the elections from a gender perspective.
“The WSRN during election will observe inclusion and participation of women, transparency of the process and violence against women in elections.
“The WSRN was created to understand the gendered and dynamic nature of violence and the fact that elections are conflict triggers in most African countries.
“It therefore became imperative that women develop a mechanism to counter this pattern.
“The goal of WSRN is to ensure that all elections in Nigeria are peaceful, as women and youths play a substantive role in sustaining and building peace in communities, state and national levels,’’ she said.
Siesi also appealed to road transport workers to support INEC in timely, adequate transportation and distribution of election materials.
She called on women to shun all forms of vote selling during the election.
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