Photo: Women Affairs Minister, Pauline Tallen
The Minister of Women Affairs, Mrs Pauline Tallen, has picked the expression of interest and nomination forms to contest for the Plateau South Senatorial seat in the 2023 elections.
Tallen’s decision to run for senate has stirred the hornet’s nest as it is seen as a direct confrontation that will pitch her in a fierce political battle against her cousin, Gov Lalong, who purchased his forms for the same senate seat last week Tuesday.
The duo both hail from Shendam Local Government Area of Plateau State and are of the same Gamai ethnic group.
The forms were said to have been picked for her in Abuja by a coalition of different women groups, who would deliver to her later on Saturday, claiming that she was the best person to replace the incumbent Senator, Prof Nora Dadu’ut, who is not contesting.
Lalong had literally imposed Dadu’ut in 2020, so as to guarantee the political permutations for the zone’s 2023 senate seat by enabling her to hold forth for him after former Senator Ignatius Longjan suddenly died in February 2020,.
The groups which picked the forms for Tallen, who is a former Deputy Governor of Plateau State and also a former Minister of State for Science and Technology under former President Olusegun Obasanjo, include the National Council for Women societies, Catholic Women Organization and Pan African Women.
Others are Christian Women Fellowship, Muslim Women Society, Women for Women, He for She, Coalition of Civil Societies, Women in Politics, National Youth Congress, Women for Change, Students Groups, among others.
The women groups described Dame Tallen as a “competent, credible and a visionary mother who would move the Plateau South Senatorial Zone forward and attract meaningful development.”
They claimed that, besides purchasing the forms for the minister, they had also mobilized massive resources and produced enough campaign materials on behalf of the Minister, and were optimistic of her chances of emerging victorious in the poll.
Tallen had in 2019 contested the senate seat against Gov Lalong’s anointed candidate, the late Senator Longjan, but was handed a an embarrassing defeat before she later emerged as a minister.
