The Nigeria Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ) has called on candidates for the 2023 general elections and their respective political parties to make issues affecting the girlchild and women in general the central point of their campaigns.

Chairperson of NAWOJ Rivers State Chapter, Susan Serekara-Nwikhana made this call during a courtesy visit by the association on the Governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Senator Magnus Abe, on Saturday, October 15, 2022 in Port Harcourt, the Rivers state capital.

She said this was in a bid to ensure the continuous development and growth of the girlchild and women, as a whole, noting that the visit was to understand the mandate of the governorship candidate and what it offers to the development of the girl child and women.

The NAWOJ Chairperson further stated that the visit was also to seek for continuous partnership with the Senator towards the development of women and girls, which, according to her, would lead to positive change in the society.

Mrs. Serekara-Nwikhana informed the SDP guber candidate that there was a necessity to reach out to girls at the grassroots since other institutions and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been reaching out to girls in the cities.

“During the International Day of the Girlchild celebration, we took it to Community Secondary School Kpaen in Khana LGA; we felt that most of the NGOs have been doing the celebration here in Port Harcourt and they’ve not been able to make out time or they are afraid to reach those remote areas and our target now is to visit those areas and see how we can touch at least 5,000 girls.”

Responding, Senator Magnus Abe appreciated NAWOJ for taking such steps towards the wellbeing of the girlchild and women, assuring that under his tenure as Governor of Rivers State, a social welfare department will be created which will identify Rivers’ citizens statistically and provide for their needs as well as support the girlchild.

“The social welfare department that we are going to create will not be one that will just sit and be receiving birthday people when they come or go to motherless babies’ home or disabled people, no that is not a social welfare department…”

“We must be able to statistically identify citizens, if we have 20 people in a school, we know how many are boys, how many are girls, if we say we want to make provision for pads for girls, we know how many pads are to be provided and exactly who is going to get them”.