By Samuel Oyejola
A member of the Board of trusty of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Rinsola Abiola has described the party’s involvement of women in elective and appointive position in the present government as unimpressive.
She said that the party believes that women should feel satisfied with the post of Women Leader while other posts in the party hierarchy are exclusively for men.
Abiola said this at a European Union sponsored programme tagged “How Do Women Win Elections in 2019?” to commemorate International Women’s Month recently in Abuja.
“Unless we have a policy that says for every three or four constituencies one has to be represented by a woman we are not going to get any concrete change to happen in terms of how many women emerge candidates,” she said.
She also observed that the Nigerian political system is specifically designed for older men to benefit considering their access to finance.
The APC BoT member said that plans are in place to present a position paper to the party on affirmative action for young people and women in both elective and appointive position. She lamented that the ministry of Women affairs is not impressive in the call for women involvement in politics.
The present APC led government has only less than 15% in the Buhari cabinet while the opposition PDP also in its last national convention held had no position for women except the women leader.
Also speaking at the event, the wife of the Minister for Solid Minerals and Mining and the former First Lady of Ekiti state, Erelu Bisi Fayemi said that women should ensure that there is enabling environment that allows every woman to thrive and every girl grow into a competent and capable woman who can run for any office and run for Governor or President.
She advised women in legislative houses and civil societies to prioritize legislative and policy framework. “We cannot continue to have women pleading and begging for inclusion,” she said.
She argued that there should be a constitutional provision for affirmative action and quota, put political weight behind it to ensure the implementation of the National Gender Policy while the violence against persons prohibition Act also needs to be implemented.
Stressing that it has been achieved in some other African countries, Fayemi advocated that the Gender and Equal Opportunity bills should be passed by the National Assembly.
As the 2019 general elections draw closer, she advised that there should be a level playing field for women adding that there should be zero tolerant for electoral violence. Fayemi advised the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to ensure that there is no electoral violence in the coming elections.
The Senator representing Adamawa, Senator Binta Garba also challenged women to believe in themselves, starts political struggle and support any woman who contest for office irrespective of political affiliation.
“The most important thing is that we must believe in ourselves, start a struggle irrespective of the political party a woman comes out to contest election, we should close our eyes to political divide and see how that woman will be elected.” She said.
Senator Garba who is the only Senator from the north in the current 8th National Assembly advised women who want to go into politics to play politics in the grassroot and be recognized instead of waiting for the electioneering season before connecting with women in the grassroot.“You must behave like them, eat their food, drink their water, know their needs and move on” she said.