Women for change or women for shame?

Recently, the current First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, launched the Women for Change Initiative, a pet project, which according to her, will serve as a viable and credible women movement. She said the initiative will build, and consolidate on the past gains and chart a way forward for women by demanding an equitable share of […]

Recently, the current First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, launched the Women for Change Initiative, a pet project, which according to her, will serve as a viable and credible women movement. She said the initiative will build, and consolidate on the past gains and chart a way forward for women by demanding an equitable share of the governance space for Nigerian women.

During the 16th July, 2010, launch in Abuja, the First Lady spoke of the project as an engine that will provide“ total restoration of the dignity of womanhood in the country, apart from careful support of women into leadership positions.”

Most of us who are women politicians became excited that the programme was coming on the threshold of an election year.  The zeal, with which the First Lady put into the project, left no woman in doubt that we will take our rightful positions in the 2011 elections. We believed that this project will provide a platform for us to achieve the 35% affirmative action we have been looking for.

We have been hopeful that the Women for Change Initiative project will create a better impact on the political lives of women in Nigeria, more than any other project before it. This might have explained the reason why there were many women aspirants in the just concluded party primaries in the country. Sadly, the presidential primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the country tend to expose our insincerity to the cause of women.

The First Lady spent sleepless nights touring all the 36 states of the federation, in the name of campaigns and fund raising to support women win elections. But so far, it is clear that we, the women, are ourselves not serious. This became manifest during the 2011 PDP primaries. No single woman, out of the over 700 women delegates to the presidential primaries of the party, supported the presidential aspiration of the only woman in the contest.

One cannot, however, conclude that after all, the First Lady had been going round campaigning for her husband, instead of women, to emerge as president of Nigeria in 2011.

But if that had been so, then the “Goodluck for everybody’’ has become “bad luck for every Nigerian woman.’’ What is conclusive here is that the “women for change initiative’’ project is a sham. The PDP convention which would have provided us with the best opportunity to demonstrate to the men, and all power sharing agents in the country, that we mean business, had been hijacked. It also opened up the masquerade in us, revealing the true nature of the Nigerian woman, who finds it hard to support her fellow woman into a leadership position. And it clearly exposes the desperate nature of the fore -runners of the project in seizing opportunity at any slightest chance.

When I obeyed the clarion call by women of my constituency to contest the seat of Ardo-kola/Lau/Karim-Lamido federal constituency under the platform of our great party, the PDP, I believed that the Women For Change Initiative will support me and the other women in the race. Only two out of the 27 of us women who contested seats in the state and federal constituencies as well as senatorial seats, in my state, Taraba, made it at the primaries of the party.

Thanks to their individual financial prowess. Since I had no idea of any one of us, receiving any financial or moral support from any gender sensitive advocacy group. Though, the party encouraged us by making nomination forms free, what we found difficult to achieve was how to convince our fellow women to give us their votes. To our chagrin and disbelieve, the women broke the chain of gender solidarity which women for change was advocating for and instead, chose to play politics of money. The questions are: how sincere are we that we are ready, as women, to fight for an equitable share in the political space in this country?

Is the Women for Change Initiative project capable of providing us with the required platform to actualise our dreams? If the answers to these questions are yes, then where was the first lady when her fellow women were moving away from their own at the PDP convention in Abuja? Is it because she said “careful” support for women into elective position? “Careful’’ when somebody like her husband is contesting alongside with a woman?

But what the First Lady should note is that she had already networked with various NGOs  both at home and abroad promising them that she was mobilising women to contest elective offices in the country. She had made several contacts with those that are supposed to carry this agenda to the required places but what happened at the Eagle Square on the 5th of January 2011 portends an element to bad faith in her adventure of take the women of Nigeria to the next level. She should have worked towards making history by insisting that the women vote their own even when they are not going to win.

That will, at least, send a message to the men that we, the womenfolk in Nigeria are not just chanting slogans. We are in the  struggle for women representation at all levels of governance of our dear country for real.  To me, the First Lady had lost a great opportunity of being the greatest advocate of gender equality of our time. She should have sacrificed personal desires for a collective goal.

Being the commander in chief of the Nigerian women, she should have directed her command in favor of women emancipation and this would have engraved her name in gold in the history of women advocates in the country. The Nigerian women on their part should not allow themselves to be used under whatever guise for achieving personal interests. Accepting that women are still working tools of the men makes a mockery of the entire campaign for gender equality. We must note that nowhere in the world that power is given to just a by-stander. It is earned and must therefore be worked for.

Giving your total votes to men, under whatever arrangement, would not make them surrender power to you.  For my sister, Madam Sarah Jibril, I salute your courage, firmness and resoluteness during those trying days. You were abandoned by women in your determination to give them a voice. Never relent. With the few ones like us among the womenfolk, who are desirous of REAL CHANGE, you will one day make your dream a reality.

Zainab A. Munga, off Palace Way, Ungwan Baraya, Jalingo. [email protected]