-No, women are less formidable- Party PRO
An aspirant contested for Egbeda/ Ona- Ara Federal constituency under Accord party in Oyo state, Chief (Mrs) Bola Amole, has shown grievances over what she called gender inequality in the party.
Mrs. Amole disclosed this yesterday in her Ibadan home when a group of deaf and dumb who are members of the party visited her to protest anomalies of gender inequality and marginalization of less privileged persons in the political party.
According to Amole, the former governor of the state, Senator Rasheed Adewolu Ladoja who is believed solely owns Accord party has not been fair to the women folk of the party by selecting anointed aspirants and not choosing any of the female aspirants.
Said she, “senator Ladoja sees us as women and watched us supporting the party with our money and efforts but when it comes to ripping the benefits, he now sees us as irrelevant assets that are good for nothing”.
“What we heard was that shortly after Senator Rasheed Ladoja primary, we will had our own primary that we should start preparing in which out of 22 chairmen of Local governments, 19 chairmen endorsed me to contest in my constituency and 75 delegates out of 82 have supported me. I was shocked later to hear that on the night of the primary election that Senator Ladoja has selected candidates in his house even without consent of other party leaders” she stated.
The London returnee politician’s aggression was also towards picking of incompetent candidates to fill positions as she questioned Senator Ladoja to say the reason they were dropped.
“Many of these candidates picked especially the one picked in my place cannot speak good English nor construct a simple sentence. Is that those they have selected to represent interest of the populace?” She queried.
But while reacting, the spokesman of the party, Prince Dotun Oyelade said the development is a dilemma of democracy saying that there are people who will always dissatisfied with outcome of primary selection.
According to him, the reason Accord party did not go through rigour of primary election was to avoid acrimony as it happened in some other political parties in the state.
On the allegation that the party did not pick any female candidate, Oyelade said it is true but Accord felt only two or three women will fill positions but after listening to party leaders, no woman was agreed upon because they are less formidable but said there are palliative measure for them and plus positions will be given to women folks if the party wins elections
He maintained that machineries have been set in place to pacify the aggrieved members adding that for now, about 80 per cent of aggrieved members have returned to the fold while the party is working hard to bring in other aggrieved members.
