When APC Showed Flashes Of A Caring Party

The All Progressives Congress(APC) is amalgam of parties that want to show Nigerians that they could be different from the behemoth, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party(PDP). While I do not subscribe to some of their policies especially their cantankerous position of always opposing the government policies on the ongoing insurgency war, the party’s release of the cost of the forms for elective office aspirants gladdens my heart and made me to think that perhaps this is a caring party.

When the APC released the cost of its presidential ticket form and the other forms, the party made the forms free for women and people living with disability. That was a good consideration by the party because the two groups are among the most marginalised in the country irrespective of geography, culture or religion. From Lagos to Kano and from Port Harcourt to Maiduguri, women and the physically challenged are the most marginalised Nigerians who are pauperised by several decades of discrimination based on religion and culture. Their exclusion from the mainstream of the nation’s economy despite the various laws on the statute books against gender discrimination and discrimination based on circumstance of birth has placed them in a position where they cannot compete with the money bag marauders that had left the nation’s economy prostrate.

However we must tell ourselves the truth that while it is a good thing making the forms free for women and the physically challenged that would not be enough to make the APC being swarmed by women and the physically challenged. The APC and the other parties should go further than that if they are to be taken serious as gender and physically challenged sensitive. The APC should make it the policy of their party that 15 per cent of elective positions across board would be reserved for women and physically challenged. It is this all-inclusive policy that made Uganda to have the highest number of women and people living with disability in government in Africa. That policy has also been adopted by other countries in East Africa. If the APC and the other parties did not do that, making their forms free for women and physically challenged will not make any difference and may indeed be seen as publicity stunt meant to hoodwink these categories of Nigerians.

While I want the APC and the other parties to make the welfare of women and the physically challenged the fulcrum of their development agenda, aspiring presidential candidates must also key into that. When I saw the seven point agenda of former vice president Atiku Abubakar that he would implement if he becomes president I was disappointed that there was nothing specific for the empowerment of women and the physically challenged. A society is judged by how it treat the most vulnerable of its members. APC and other parties should never forget that, if they truly want to be seen as caring party.