BY DAPO AKINREFON

Ms Sharon Ikeazor is the protem national women leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC. Ikeazor was recently in Lagos for a town hall meeting with the women wing of the Southwest zone of the party. On the fringes of the meeting she spoke on the quest of the party to wrest control of the Federal Government, the role of women in the move among other things. Excerpts:

APC women were tear gassed by Police during their protest, what is your take on that?

It just shows you the impunity that we are talking about in Nigeria. It shows that we don’t have a right to protest anymore. It is totally wrong for the Police to tear gas the women. The police should make sure that we have security but we that are having a peaceful protest are being tear gassed, this has to stop in Nigeria.

*Ikeazor

From the voters’ register, it was realized that more women registered for the election than the men. Don’t you think if there had been a female  candidate, she would have emerged the winner of the election?

Precisely. The problem is that we women are not yet united. The essence of this town hall meeting is for us to unite. You know we are three merging parties from the state level to the ward level. We decided to hold this town hall meeting for us to unite.

Our strength is in our numbers, we are going to be a formidable force within the political party.

As women, we constitute 51 per cent of the population and as it has been pointed out, majority of registered voters are women. So, we want to use that numeric strength to bring about victory for the APC because APC is bringing about that change for us women.

Beyond bringing victory for the APC, 2015 is around the corner, what will the women be asking for in terms of positions?

We are already preparing our female aspirants. We have started organising training and workshop for female aspirants who are going to run in the 2015 general elections.

We have local government elections going on and we have been preparing women who have been running. In 2015, we will see an increase in the number of women running for elective positions on the APC platform.

What are the chances of APC in 2015?

Our chances are bright. APC is a conglomerate. Think of the strength of the defunct CPC, ACN and ANPP, with these three together, our chances are very bright.

Do you have fears that INEC may not live up to expectation in 2015?

No! We are going to have our party agents, who will protect our votes. Protection of votes is key and we are already training our polling unit agents, both male and female.

But in the case of Anambra, the APC in a statement recently said they were not given accreditation for the agents to be used..

(Cuts in) this is all part of the problem we went through with INEC, which we will not allow in 2015. Anambra election has shown us what INEC might do in 2015 and so we will start working now to prevent it.

What is the party going to do to ensure it wins election in the South East where it is not too strong?

I am from Anambra State. APC is a new party for them in the Southeast but by the time they see the members of the interim NEC and members of the APC who are from the South east,, they will buy into it. That is why I am doing town hall meetings to sensitize people. Once they know that their people are part of the APC, they will join.

APGA started by playing regional politics by saying that APGA was for the Igbos.

No party is for one tribe. I was the national women leader of the CPC and I am from Anambra. We just have different ideologies, you have family members in one party and you be in another. We should not play regional politics. I grew up in Lagos but I am Igbo.