Taraba: Where are the women voters?

The results so far announced by INEC showed just how close and keen the election was, with the PDP candidates, Mr Darius Ishaku, polling 317,198 votes to enjoy a marginal lead over his closest APC candidate Mrs Aisha Alhassan popularly called ‘Maman Taraba’ with 262,386 votes. Taraba has generated so much attention from the country, […]

The results so far announced by INEC showed just how close and keen the election was, with the PDP candidates, Mr Darius Ishaku, polling 317,198 votes to enjoy a marginal lead over his closest APC candidate Mrs Aisha Alhassan popularly called ‘Maman Taraba’ with 262,386 votes.
Taraba has generated so much attention from the country, only that this time not because of crisis, which has become a topical issue in the state but because a first female elected governor in the history of this country is about to be birthed. Keep in mind that If she is elected, she would not be the first female governor in Nigeria for, that record has long been snatched by Dame Virginia Ngozi Etiabat who rose from Deputy Governor to become the Governor of Anambra State after the ‘impeachment’ of Mr Peter Obi on March 17, 2006, but she would definitely be the first female ELECTED Governor in Nigeria.   To an unbiased observer the emergence of a woman as governorship candidate of a leading political party would signal a departure from the hitherto ‘men’s job’ and more importantly a major attempt to demonstrate that the country has gone far beyond paying lip service to the removal of all forms of discrimination against women. Others in a show of disdain would simply dismiss her ambition with some few words thus: “Is she not a woman! She would only try but would not win. Government house is not a kitchen”. Yet my very good friend ‘Prof. Stone’ had this to say: “yes women have the highest percentage of voting population but I can tell you with hindsight that many women would not vote for a fellow woman because they are always envious and suspicious of one another”.
The greatest enemy of women are women themselves and it would be fruitless, not to mention jejune, for women to look beyond themselves in the search for the cause of their political misadventure.   By their defeatist and surrender posture, women have allowed men to ride roughshod over them with reckless abandon. Or how does one explain that Taraba State with registered voters of 1.340,652 and more than half of these voters are women and a female candidate is trailing behind after the first round of balloting?  Population, they say, is strength. Barring any last minute effort by some politicians who are still living in the past to rig the election, women in Taraba, when united, still have that golden key to Taraba Government House. This Saturday governorship re-run in Taraba provides a monumental and seldom opportunity for women to demonstrate unequivocally that leadership, especially at the highest level is not the exclusive preserve of men.  

Alatise Taofeeq Nasir and Ruth Ozegbe, Ilorin <[email protected]>;