By Gabriel Enogholase

BENIN—AHEAD of the March 28 presidential election, Dame Patience Jonathan has promised that if President Goodluck Jonathan is re-elected, he will increase the 35 percent Women Affirmative Action to 45 percent to enable women contribute their quota to national development.

Mrs. Jonathan, who addressed a rally organised by Women for Change Development Initiative in Benin, Edo State, said that President Jonathan gave out 16 positions to women as a result of the faith he had in them and appealed to them to reciprocate the president’s gesture by voting for him in the presidential election.

Meanwhile, three members of the Benin Royal family, Prince Ekpen Erediauwa (a former Oredo Local Government Transition Chairman), Prince Ada Erediauwa and Prince Osama Erediauwa, formerly defected from the All Progressives Congress, APC, to the PDP and were received by Dame Jonathan.

Advancing reasons for their defection from the APC to the PDP and their support for Jonathan, Prince Ekpen Erediauwa said that the Binis were for President Jonathan as Otuoke, Jonathan’s people, were Binis who migrated from the ancient Bini kingdom to their present place centuries ago.