Be actively involved in sensitisation against election violence, DPP tells women

The Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) National Women Leader, Mrs Victoria Oviasojie, has urged women to be actively involved in sensitisation of their children against election violence as 2019 general elections approach.

Oviasojie, in an interview on Sunday in Abuja, said that women had big role to play in promoting peaceful elections.

She said that addressing election violence began from the grassroots with women taking the leading role in sensitising their children on the dangers of electoral violence.

She said that it was possible to have peaceful and free elections in Nigeria with enough sensitisation from family to family, door to door, street to street, in wards, states and local governments.

“It is possible, we can do without violence in politics and electioneering period. How? We have to go to the grassroots to sensitise our children and educate them.

“Let the children know that you don’t need to kill yourselves because those people you are killing yourselves for are also drinking champagne together in the night. And that most of the politicians and their children are not there.

“These are the things we should tell our children and our youths.

“By the time you start doing this over time, the children will get to understand, and when they have better understanding, it is going to be an easy thing.

“In management language they said, doesn’t blame them if you don’t train them.

“So if you don’t train these children against violence, you cannot blame them. Somebody is going to give them money and say go and start shooting and killing people.

“I think it is really possible to do politics, even elections without violence, but it is a work that has to be done long before elections,“ she said

She also called on women to talk with their neighbourhood and communities, an exercise Oviasojie further urged should spread over to states and the country at large.

Oviasojie, however, said that such sensitisation should not be left for women alone, stressing that men should also be actively involved.

“Women should see it as their own priority while men should also support us by the side.’’

Oviasojie said that such sensitisation toward achieving peaceful elections should not be a fire brigade approach, but a long term project.

She further suggested that the awareness should be introduced to school curriculum in the secondary schools and tertiary institutions.