Women have a lot to say on restructuring — Uzoma

Esther Uzoma is human rights and gender rights advocate. She is also the Executive Director of Proactive Gender Initiative (PGI). In this interview, she says the NGO is presently organizing women to make their voice heard on various issues agitating the c

There are many issues going on in the country, including call for restructuring, secession, onesided appointments among others. How are you empowering women and youth to take active part in some of these discussions?

Proactive Gender Initiative was recently funded by the Ford Foundation to organize a workshop on roundtable on women’s rights, youth development and media advocacy. How do we use the media to amplify the voices of women and youth concerning the issues about their right? We had various speakers who came to speak to us. Most of them told us how to access fund; others inclusiveness, others told us how to strengthen the women movement. So these are some of the things we harvested from there. We also harvested the opinion of youths on what they want and they were all agitating that, ‘if I am old enough to vote, I am also old enough to be voted for.’ So these are some of the things we did.

What is your take on the agitation for restructuring of Nigeria?

The call for restructuring is coming at the right time. The call in line with the spirit of the time so that the states can optimize their potentials and to give a sense of belonging to every individual in the country. So that is why we need to restructure so that we can unbundle the constitution, decentralise the powers heavily weighing the centre down. With restructuring we can perform better so that development can cascade down.

As a women activist what will be the role of women in all these?

Considering that women represent almost half the population of Nigeria, we should not keep quite in this agitation. Women are also coming together and saying that much as we restructure along political lines and the Nigerian entity, we must restructure along gender lines. What does that mean? The quest for parity, inclusiveness, this is the time that it will be a whole package. Gender parity will now move beyond the level of policy to law because the constitution is going to be tinkered with and dissected extensively.

We will also include gender representative government at all levels beyond political appointment and 35 per cent affirmative action. So we could have equal number of persons of both sexes at parliament and other places so that we will not continue to sing the song of inclusiveness in a restructured Nigeria. Once it is being done everything will be restructured at once.

Why do you want women involved in the discourse?

Women play a vital role in peace building and the voice of the Nigerian women must be heard at this critical time. This is time for women from all sides of the agitations to speak out. It is easy for men to talk about taking up arms but it is easy for women to come together, as people who bring life, to sit around a table and aggregate opinions and then present a united front to all sides and say ‘listen this is what we think should happen and how we should go about achieving this restructuring; it is not about bloodshed.’ That is the message they take to their husbands and sons that we must go the way of dialogue.

There is no understanding as to how the restructuring is going to be?

There appears to be a consensus on the need to restructure. If we take it from there the next step is for us to sit down on a table and decide how we want it to be. It will not be an imposition; it will be a matter for seasoned dialogue. And while we are at it, all aspects even the youths persons are agitating, so it will be an all-inclusive restructuring. But the specifics are what we will all sit down as adults and discuss and arrive at something that will work.

Not all Nigerians accept restructuring as the way to go. Would it require some form of referendum to determine the choices of people?

No, I don’t think there is any section of the country that doesn’t want restructuring. I don’t think so because if you interrogate the pontificating of the various groups that are agitating, what they are crying for is about inclusiveness. So the specifics are what we now sit down and discuss because this is the only country we have.

First of all, specifics are what we will discuss. For instance some of the recommendations of the National Conference of Jonathan have been implemented, especially on North East reconstruction. So as the agitations for restructuring are reaching a crescendo something has to give. So it is better for us while there is still a semblance of law and order amidst the cacophony of voices, to give a platform for action to all theses. The elders, youth and women are saying a different thing; so that there will be a harvest of opinions which will be aggregated and crystallized and everybody will say ‘yes this was our input.’ So it is better to ride with the tide because you cannot shut it down; it is growing by the day.

A lot of people believe that all these agitations will die down with time?

No it has refused to die. This is not the first time; it just keeps growing and growing. So it is better to address it so that we can move to other things.