Politics
The Nigerian League of Women Voters (NILOWV), Enugu State Chapter, has appealed to the National Assembly to make a law reserving certain number of political offices for women.
The State Chairperson of the league, Mrs Nnenna Anozie, made the appeal in Enugu on Saturday at the maiden meeting of the league.
Anozie said that the essence of the league was to bring women from their relegated background to the forefront in governance for a better society.
This, she said, would lead to increase of women participation in governance from its present less than 10 per cent to 35 per cent or more.
Anozie said the league was also concerned with impacting public policies through advocacy, education and research.
According to her, NILOWN is a registered non-governmental organisation and civil society organisation with the aim of empowering Nigerian women politically and economically, for national development.
“The league is a civil organisation that is non-partisan, non-religious, non- sectarian and non-tribal,” she said.
Anozie added that the league’s interest was to empower women in all spheres of life, stressing that membership was open to every woman who believed in women and was desirous of working for women.
Also, Mrs Onyinye Ugwu, Deputy Leader, Enugu State House of Assembly, charged women to always work together, support themselves and synergise so that they could be in a good position to dialogue and negotiate with their male counterparts.
The lawmaker, who said that the number of women was their strength, added that they were bigger than their male counterparts in term of population.
“Women are bigger and more useful than wearing ‘aso ebi’, dancing and clapping, receiving salts, rice and clothes to get the men elected. And on getting to power, they forget them,” the lawmaker said.
In her remarks, the National President, Catholic Women Organisation, Mrs Nwanneka Okolo, said that a survey showed that Nigeria was far behind most African countries in women participation in parliament and governance.
Okolo explained that Uganda was able to get the provision for a female Vice- President in its constitution, while Kenya had four elected female governors and 26 elected female deputy governors out of 47 states.
According to her, Rwanda gave women 61.3 per cent, Senegal 42.7 per cent, South Africa 38.8 per cent, Namibia 41.3 per cent, Mozambique 39.63 per cent Ethiopia 38.8 per cent, Angola 38.2 per cent, while Nigeria can only boast of 5.9 per cent.
Also, Dr Joy Onyesoh, President, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), said that leadership was a process of maximising the efforts of others to achieve a goal.
Onyesoh said that the problem with most Nigerian leaders was that they struggled for nomenclature without knowing what they could achieve in the office.
She said that a leader must have vision and goals to enable the masses rally round the vision, urging women to always have clearly defined visions before joining politics.
She said that for people to aspire for leadership, they should have knowledge, value and credibility, so that the masses could believe in them.
Also, the General Manager, Coal City FM (Radio Nigeria) Enugu, Mrs Joy Obitulata, encouraged women to have peace and unity among themselves.
Obitulata said that women should remove acrimony and unnecessary gang-up among them and be their sister’s keepers to enable them move forward and gain more positions in politics. (NAN)
– Aug. 3, 2019 @ 20:25 GMT |
Tags: League tasks NASS on law reserving certain number of political seats for women
