The Deputy National Women Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Hon. Zainab Ibrahim, has urged the party to adopt the twinning formula as a strategy to increase women’s inclusion in politics.

Speaking in Abuja during an advocacy programme at the weekend, Ibrahim described the formula as the “lowest hanging fruit” for enhancing women’s political participation.

She explained that in several countries, the model reserves positions such as vice president, deputy governor, and vice chairman in party structures and governance exclusively for women.

Ibrahim appealed to the APC to lead by example, stressing that if the ruling party had embraced the formula, there would currently be 24 female deputy governors across APC-controlled states.

“Apart from the special seat advocacy that we are undertaking, we are also strongly advocating for twinning. The twinning does not even require any National Assembly (legislation). It does not require anything. It’s just a policy by a political party.

“In New York in 2016, I was at a conference and I met the Vice President of the Gambia who was a woman and I asked her, Gambia is an Islamic country, how come you became the Vice President? She told me all their governors have deputy governors as women because the ruling party adopted the twinning formula.

“So you see, it is just a policy pronouncement by the party, and then it becomes. Now, if my party, APC, should adopt the twinning formula, we have 24 states APC controls, and we would have had 24 deputy governors.

“So to me, the lowest hanging fruit to women inclusion in politics is the twinning formula, and we are working strongly on it. You know, the special seats bill will have some legislative backing at the end of the day but when a party formulates a formula, it is subject to changes and that is why we are paying more attention to that of the special seats bill.

“But we are also doing a very high level advocacy for the twinning formula because countries that have attained up to 50% and more like Namibia, Rwanda adopted the twinning formula….by the grace of God, it can even be achieved faster than the special seats bill.”

Ibrahim, who doubles as deputy national secretary of the Inter-party Advisory Council (IPAC), said she will use her position to spread the policy along all the political parties in the country.

“I head the women directorate created by IPAC. IPAC has three directorates, the women, youth, and people with disabilities. I head the directorate of women of IPAC. So, my relationship is not just with women of APC. I deal with every party card carrying member who is a woman in Nigeria.

“Under my directorate, I have the 19 national women 6 under them; we have the 37 state women leaders. Under them, it cascaded down to unit level. So my relationship is not just with APC state women leaders. I deal with every woman leader of every political party and we are working hand-in-hand,” she added.

The APC National Working Committee (NWC) member further argued that the policy is not new to the country, citing Kogi state, where the former governor mandated all the local government chairmen in the state to pick female running mates.

“Now, we have some states who have already adopted that, like when Yahaya Bello was governor in Kogi, all the local government chairmen, the vice chairmen were women. That is what we call twinning formula. So we are now waiting to see such become a policy especially of the leading political parties in Nigeria who have a large number of states they control,” Ibrahim said.

To drive home their demand, the Woman Leader said the women folks in the country may want to have the formula as a bargaining and negotiating power in future elections.

“Every governor that tells us, number one, his deputy is going to be a woman, every local government vice chairman is going to be a woman. What else do we want from any governor, rather than to give him our 100 percent support?

“I believe that Mr. President, sooner or later, is going to adopt that for us and you will see how every Nigerian woman will support Mr. President, by the grace of God.” (The Nation)