The Nigerian Women Trust Fund, (NWTF) has organized a three-day Training of Trainers (ToT) for selected women from different local government areas of Anambra state, ahead of the November 8th 2025 gubernatorial election.
Angel Network News (ANN) reports that
the training organized by NWTF as part of continuous voter education project is funded by the European Union under the cohort of 16 organizations.
It is being implemented under the component 5A, known as the European Union Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria.
The Program Lead at the NWTF, Vaneza Gregory while speaking, explained that the project is specifically targeted at reducing political illiteracy among women who make up almost half of the voting population in the country.
Gregory explained that such intervention has been carried out in other states during off-circle elections.
“We realize that women make up almost half of the population, but when you look into leadership, you find that they are missing in certain positions.
“When you look at people who come out to vote on election day, the vast majority are women. But due to economic vulnerability, women easily get lured into ills like vote buying as they collect wrapper, rice, oil, etc to sell their votes.
“If we want to see better results in terms of women participation in politics, we must educate the female electorate so they know their civic and electoral rights.
NWTF Program Lead explained that the goal is to put women in the best position to make sound judgment and electoral choices.
“This training is not specific to Anambra as we have conducted it in Edo, Ondo, Bayelsa and Kogi states.
According to her, the women being trained will in turn train fellow women in their jurisdiction or communities.
Gregory noted that this helps to create a multiplier effect. “We get together female CSOs and women with a big presence within social circles and train them.
“We get together female CSOs and women with a big presence within social circles and train them. We have a carefully curated manual with modules such as civic education, knowing your rights and responsibilities as a voter.
“It also gives the women the step-by-step of the voting procedure. We also talk about registration, so we go across the electoral cycle. NWTF has chosen to do this over three days not because we have the time to waste but we want to take our time to answer questions.
“We don’t want to just come in, train them for one day and leave them to their own devices. This is because each woman we train is expected to step down this information to her community women.
“We take time to explain these concepts to them so that they will be able to pass the information to fellow women effectively.
The Program Lead further explained that they are trying to achieve a more informed female electorate.
“The next step for these women we are training is to go and pass on this information to create a multiplier effect. If we’ve trained 30 women, 25 of them will train 50 other women while 5 will train 100 fellow women.
“The plan is that the process continues during off-cycle elections. We might repeat it for the general elections in 2027, we’re not sure if Anambra is one of our selected states. So, apart from getting women elected and better informed about the electoral process, the intervention will lead to efficient governance.
She was of the view that better informed electorate will be able to call out misdemeanors and electoral irregularities.
“As time goes on, politicians will be less able to manipulate the process because are going to vote people based on merit not based on what they can get today,” Gregory concluded.
