The Forum of All Progressives Congress, APC, State Women Leaders on Tuesday lamented that they have been abandoned by the national leadership of the party.
The President of the Forum, Patricia Yakubu, made the complaint on Tuesday in Abuja during a courtesy call on the national chairman of the party, Dr Abdullah Ganduje.
Yakubu, who led 35 other APC state Women Leaders, stated categorically that they have been left out in the scheme of things in the party by the National Woman leader of the party, Mary Alele-Idile.
She stated: “The State Women Leaders will want to advocate that we should be carried along in all the affairs pertaining to women in the states. We are closer to the party women at the grassroots, the largest voting bloc in the secular world. Our demography should not be neglected.
“Since after the elections, Your Excellency may note that only one bag of rice and one paper wrapper was given to the States women leaders from the National Secretariat of the party. Nothing was given to us during Easter, the Ramadan fasting period and Salah Festivities.
“Even the palliatives that were distributed were not given to the women leaders for onward distribution to the grassroots, We party women waited and waited and waited to no avail very sad.”
Yakubu pointed out that Federal Government empowerment programs that have to do with women sound like news to them.
She added: “That the National Woman Leader and her Deputy should involve the State Women Leaders in all their programs from the designing stage so as to attract our full participation and involvement by so doing will help capture the peculiarities of the various states.
“We, the Women Leaders of the 36 States and the FCT, pray the National Woman Leader and her Deputy to periodically interact with women leaders at the state level, so as to have full knowledge of happenings at the grassroots and proffer solutions.”
