Nigeria’s Minister of Women Affairs, Mrs Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, has emerged the winner of the maiden edition of an online poll put together by an Ireland based newspaper, The Street Journal.
This was disclosed in a statement made available in Abuja on Sunday by Mr Osondu Joseph, Special Assistant on Media to the minister.
Joseph said the award was formally presented to the minister in her office by management of the media outfit led by the Publisher, Mogaji Arisekola, who described the award as deserving in view of the initiatives made by the minister to promote the interest of women and vulnerable children.
“She tops in the keenly contested poll, which had four other Ministers contending for the ‘Super Minister’ of the month award.
“She polled 190,848 votes (45.74%) to emerge the clear winner with Senator Dave Umahi, a former Governor of Ebonyi State, now Minister for Works, trailing closely behind by polling 171,137 votes (41.02%).
“Other Ministers who were part of the poll are Dr Betta Edu, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation who came third. She polled 22,505 votes (5.39%), and Bunmi Ojo, Minister of Interior, who polled 21,204 votes (5.08%).
Explaining the result of the poll, Arisekola stated that the exercise would be sustained to spur others to perform their duties effectively towards achieving national development.
“The poll is credible, cannot be manipulated or influenced. The poll was designed in such a way that the votes counted, and one can see how the votes were cast.
“There was transparency and your emergence as winner cannot be far-fetched especially in view of some bold steps you took recently to fight the cause of women. Nigerians voted massively for you,” he uttered.
On her part, the minister expressed appreciation to the organizers for the initiative of using the poll as yardstick to measure and engender service delivery among the serving ministers.
She urged the media to continue to partner in the on-going drive to change the status of Nigerian women and vulnerable children.
