By Editor
A non governmental organisation, Hope for Family Development Initiative (HFDI) has called on media practitioners in Ekiti State and across the country to give more support to women in politics through improved media coverage and reports of their activities.
Speaking at a two-day town hall meeting organised by the initiative in Ekiti State with the theme ; “Advancing Women’s Political Participation Through Female Elected Candidates in the South West Nigeria”, in Ikere Ekiti recently, the project manager, Mrs Adeola Falana described the project as a pilot project for the South West on how to advance women political participation through female elected candidates in the South West and that the project is currently being implemented in Osun Oyo and Ekiti State.
She maintained that the objective of the programme is to see that more women are taking either selective or elective positions in the next elections in the State.
She pointed out that in any campaign or political meetings, you would see more women in attendance, but when it comes to holding positions, women have zero or very low participation and that the number is always nothing to write home about, which according to her was the reason the NGO embarked on the project.
“We want to reposition the participation of women in politics, we want to see that they are not just involved in campaigns alone, they are not just involved in political meetings alone, not just tools that politicians are using to get to positions, we want to see that they are also given positions so that the 35% affirmative is also being implemented in Ekiti State because currently, the numbers of women in positions are not even up to 10%, which is not yet a pass mark.
“But the stakeholders that came have already given their support to see that more women are taking more positions and political roles in Ekiti State. We had different stakeholders who can help us look into how we can advance women political participation in Ekiti State and during the meeting, these stakeholders have given their commitments that they will henceforth support women in politics whether in their campaigns or supporting them by voting for them when the time comes.
“They also gave their commitment to also raise women who are going to be holding leadership positions, and when we talk about leadership positions, it is not about politics alone , it can even be at the church, mosque, at the community level or different organisations or groups they belong to. The stakeholders vowed to be advocates for increase women participation in leadership roles.” She explained.
Falana affirmed that the NGO has no affiliation with any political party, but committed to ensuring that community members live healthy and conducive lives, and work on good governance which was the basis for the town hall meeting with stakeholders in the State.
“When we talk about good governance, is not only women in politics, we also do what we call budget monitoring, assets monitoring that are being done by government, economic empowerment, not only about giving money to people alone, but also, enhancing financial literacy for people that need it. We are also involve in capacity building training to ensure that we build the capacity of community members that need it on certain important issues,” she said.
Also speaking at the event, Alhaja Ganiyat Famiodu who represents Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), as the gender desk officer said, the Commission is in full support of the organization. Noting that as an electoral umpire, INEC has always advocated for women full participation in politics.
Another stakeholder at the events, Alhaja Ganiyat Ganiyu representing Federation of Muslim Women Association of Nigeria (FOMWAN) said, the programme is an awareness programme to make women know that they are also important in the political stance of Nigeria, which makes it a very nice programme and good one at this moment. She said women participation in politics should not only be followership but to hold elective positions in Ekiti State and Nigeria as a whole.
“The organization has done well by bringing the programme to Ekiti, but they must continue doing it because Rome was not built in a day. And something like this, an awareness that has not been taking by women for a longtime is something that has to be repeated on and on for sometime before the people can start getting into the theme of the programme,” she advised.
While discussing difficulties being faced by women in politics in Nigeria at the summit, the discussants agreed that some of the problems include; fear of the unknown, lack of financial independence, women not supporting fellow women during elections and lack of parental care for the women while growing up. Others Include, most women not willing to contest, lack of good antecedents by most women, pride, lack of permission by their husbands and poor educational backgrounds.
According to the project manager, at the end of the two day town meeting, the stakeholders came out with the following resolutions : that there should be improved media coverage to support women in politics, constant reporting of gender related political issues by the media, organised media campaign to support women achievements and that religious leaders should encourage women to occupy leadership positions both in our churches and mosques.
Also, gender equality must be upheld at its high esteem by our leaders, while community leaders must champion a call for more women participation in the administration of our communities. Women should actively campaign for women, while existing organisations like NOA, FOMWAN, INEC, market leaders and others should whole heartedly support and campaign for more involvement of women in leadership roles among others.
The two-day event was well attended by participants across the State. Among those present were representatives of National Orientation Agency, (NOA), Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Federation of Muslim Women Association of Nigeria (FOMWAN), and representatives of Christian Association of Nigeria, (CAN). Others include, market leaders, representatives of disables, representatives from NAWOJ, Ekiti youth parliament leaders and others.
