‘Rural women deserve empowerment and more slots in public offices’

You are known for canvassing for women’s active participation in politics. How is the effort paying off in winning more roles for them in Nigerian politics, dominated by men?  Yes, we are asking that women should be given a kind of quota to participate in politics and all the leadership positions. We are also asking […]

You are known for canvassing for women’s active participation in politics. How is the effort paying off in winning more roles for them in Nigerian politics, dominated by men?
 Yes, we are asking that women should be given a kind of quota to participate in politics and all the leadership positions. We are also asking for excluded groups like persons with disability, women, prisoners and persons on election duty and Nigerians in Diaspora to be included to participate in our electoral processes.

How do we ensure and sustain credible elections in Nigeria?
 From the conversations we are having, credible election  also needs educating the public which this project is all about. We mobilise the public; we went to national and state assemblies; we have talked to the media and civil society groups in each state and empowered some. And we have been saying, if we introduced electronic voting it will go a long way in ensuring credible elections. And all these gaps in administration of electoral processes and elections will be taken care of by e-voting.  So it is high time we embraced electronic voting.  We are also asking that women should be given space in all the institutions; there should be affirmative action. Looking at the historical discrimination against women, we believe that if they are given a quota it will right the wrong.
 And we are sure that women can do it well. Like when we visited the Jigawa State House of Assembly, we were surprised that male members were actually asking for women participation in political processes at all levels and all of them were men.
 We also went to Oyo State House of Assembly, they had only two women but they said it could be better. So we are saying there should be conscious effort for amendment, having a law that will say, yes, this percentage of quota should be given to women in order to mainstream them in our political system.
 I think Nigerian women are the ones actually shying away from contesting against men. 
 Because of the historical discrimination against them, women for many centuries were relegated to the background. Men made conscious efforts to push them to the background and there is no way women can easily catch up with men in this regard. And that is why the country is the way it is. 

 But the country has seen Nigerian women who have done well in public positions they occupied?
Yes, but some people are always eager to point to those who did not do well. We are saying there should be a mechanism to sort out quality candidates for positions and priority given to women. And that person will be representing the women constituency, not like I am here because Mr. President put me here. If you are representing a constituency, the constituency should once in a while be able to assess your performance. They should be able to say, you are not representing us well and we will recall you because of that. We are not saying just give a woman a ticket and go to sleep because she is a woman. 

You are now canvassing for women to be given a certain quota, what percentage are we looking at?
We are looking at all levels and we are talking of 35 percent quota for women, which must cut across local government, state and national levels. The slots should be strictly for women and no other person should contest with them for it.

What are the benefits therein if this 35 percent quota is eventually granted women?
Firstly, as women, we would collectively ensure that women of integrity occupy such positions. In this case, we are not talking of a situation whereby a politician will nominate or appoint his wife or daughter to fill positions reserved for the womenfolk and expect us to believe it is being occupied by the representative of Nigerian women. No, they are only representing their husband or father as the case may be.
 But when you give women such quota, they will decide amongst themselves who gets what and it won’t be through imposition of men favoured candidates.

 How do you think employment opportunities can be extended to women in the rural areas because it has been observed that rural women are more than men?
 During our discussions today, participants said presently some of the governors take all allocations that are supposed to go to the local governments, so we should deepen the campaign to get local government allocations for the local governments which are the closest to those at the grassroots level. Like in one of the North Central states, they told us that the state governor takes all the local governments allocations and that he pays local governments chairmen N50,000 per month and councilors N30,000.
No local government chairman goes to office in the state as we speak now because they are afraid that if they do, the people expect money from them and they don’t have it. So, we have to ensure that the independence that the constitution grants the local governments should actually be in practice and not on paper.
 And we have just agreed that we are going to do more at that level to ensure that the local governments chairmen are also monitored to ensure accountability.
 We will also engage them to use their allocations for things that will be beneficial to those at the local level. So, it is when we do that that we can now talk of working towards eradicating poverty at the local level.