WOMEN’s Leadership Group, WLG, a civil society organization, has called on students and young people to engage in promoting gender equality in Nigeria’s politics. In a talk with students of the Faculty of Arts, University of Lagos, on April 18, two members of WLG, Nkechi Eke Nwankwo, a gender expert and Rakiya Zubairu, a veteran journalist, challenged the students to go beyond the cynicism about electoral processes in Nigeria and find ways to engage and make a change.

Attended by 140 students (90 females and 50 males), WLG’s engagement with the young people is part of the organization’s activities to prepare Nigeria’s electorate as election year 2019 fast approaches. The group noted that it has become imperative to ensure that the abysmal (less than six percent) representation of Nigerian women in politics and appointment to political positions records a significant change in the next election.

Women’s Leadership Group, an organization that has been promoting women’s political rights since 1998 believes that women have to be encouraged to actively seek political offices in more numbers in order to hold the men to the promise of reserving certain percentages for them. Certainly there are no shortages of qualified women to fill 35 percent or even more of political positions in Nigeria.

In the interactive session during the engagement, the students pledged to engage by ensuring they register to vote and encourage their family and friends to do the same.

The event was organized in collaboration with the Faculty of Arts Students Association, FASA.

– Apr. 19, 2018 @ 19:59 GMT

AE