Dogara: Women involvement in politics necessary for growth

Active involvement of Nigerian women in the political space would lead to rapid social and economic progress of the country, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, said in Abuja. Dogara was speaking at the 6th National Women Parliament Summit with the theme ‘2019 and Beyond: Women and National Development,’ organized by the House Committee on Women in Parliament.

The speaker said Nigerian women would play key role in the 2019 elections if an enabling environment was created for them to participate fully in the exercise.

“In Nigeria, the political parties have made efforts to remove the requirement of financial contributions or fees for clearance of women to contest various elective offices. What then stops the political parties from affirmative action for women for appointive offices when they win power? We must be prepared to rid ourselves of these pretensions.

“The political will must be found by political actors before this can be achieved. Political education on the importance of women in politics should also be stepped up as a deliberate priority for advocates,” he said.

Dogara also explained that the House passed the 35 per cent affirmative action in the on-going constitution amendment exercise to encourage women but that it failed in the Senate.

“The problems and challenges facing women participation in politics in Nigeria, in spite of modest strides, are deep rooted. They include the patriarchal nature of our traditional society; stigmatization of women politicians by a largely ignorant society; political thuggery, violence; financial capacity; religious and cultural stereotyping and bottlenecks and educational disadvantage,” he said.

In her welcome address, the chairperson of the Women in Parliament committee, Evelyn Oboro (PDP, Delta), said the summit was organised to give Nigerian women the opportunity to strategise for full participation in the 2019 elections.

She said although there were a number of Nigerian women doing well politically, their contribution “is grossly under-represented and barely recognized,” expressing concern that women participation in politics had been very little.”