‘How household tasks count against female politicians’
Mrs Alice Asaije Dimlong is a lawyer and the only woman out of the 24 elected members of the Plateau State House of Assembly. In this interview, she spoke on her experience winning the seat and how women’s responsibilities in households exert effects on their political careers.
How did you get into the race for membership of the Plateau State House of Assembly?
I have always liked to speak for my people. I chose to vie for the House of Assembly in order to have an authoritative platform to represent them. I have always felt that my people are not getting their due, but I know it is easy to criticize people in government, so I said let me go there and actively give myself.
I contested in 2011 under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the same House of Assembly, but PDP did the usual and I didn’t get past the primary. I remained at the back scene, going along with my people till my new platform, the All Progressive Congress (APC) came along. I actually came out last year for the same office and under PDP, but I noticed that there was a sort of cabal, and unless you were in that cabal, you had no platform. Since I didn’t belong to that cabal, I got myself another platform.
So, you got into APC quite recently?
In the last five to six months. I was a PDP person basically until then.
How did you cross into APC and used its ticket so successfully?
It was divine intervention, to be honest. When the cabal thing was going on in PDP and I wasn’t getting anywhere because I’m a politician with no godfather, I felt I must move out. I opted for another platform, believing that my people would go with me, because I’ve always been a grassroots person.
I didn’t join APC with the expectation that I would necessarily win. I only thought since my people had been yearning for change and had been showing me much love, let me see about this other platform. So, I walked into the party. When I went to pick up the form, the chairman told me someone else was interested in the same position, but that they would get back to me. I suppose they took their time to find out who was likely to deliver, and I eventually emerged the candidate unopposed.
Diket Plang of PDP was the incumbent member who was also quite popular, and he was contesting. How did you feel going into the general election knowing that you had such a formidable opponent?
I have been in the political scene for quite a while and I have been a grassroots person. I was going home frequently and I knew that what applies at home is not the picture that the people expect from Diket Plang. He was working, but you require Needs assessment.
He was working but what he was doing wasn’t what we needed. My people appreciated him because, compared with his predecessors, he had done well but because there was no Needs assessment, he wasn’t meeting our needs. I knew then that if I came along, I could get the office.
All the same, the contest was close between you both. You got 17,028 while he received 16,134 votes. Were you not anxious while voting lasted?
The victory margin was close, but it is because things didn’t go the way they should have gone. People actually though it was a miracle that I emerged victorious. They thought I was young, I am a woman, I was not in power I didn’t have the money; but I knew I had the masses. I knew they were with me. So, honestly, if the election went as well as they should, the contest would not have been that close.
You talked in an earlier interview about men doing ‘their thing’ against women and now you have spoken of things not going as they should. What do you mean?
I don’t know if it is really about men or the PDP thing: they are synonymous. If I was in the PDP, I wouldn’t have come this far. About men doing their thing - they sort of think, ‘Okay, she is a woman, I can’t negotiate some kind of deal with her. We can’t open up on some kind of thing.’
So, most of the time they are not comfortable with women and they tend also not to want to vote for women. Coming from the legal profession, mine was worse. They were like ‘this woman is too strict, she is not someone we can strike deals with’. Also, the big people in PDP are used to sharing of money, that kind of thing, and they couldn’t see how it would work with me. The process was divided between the rich and the poor. Election went the way of money generally.
Almost all the 24 state constituencies in the state had at least one female candidate in the House of Assembly election, but in a vast majority of cases, the women polled the least votes. Why was this so?
Most times the men are not comfortable with us, as I’ve mentioned. And a lot of the maneuvering is done in the middle of the night. I have children, I have a husband and you tell me you are going to do a meeting by 2 a.m., 3 a.m.; it’s not possible for me to attend. They do those things at impossible times when you don’t get to show up. They do the negotiations and the dirty deals at such times.
Then suddenly, people that have been with you turn the other way, they turn to people and places they’ve been made to feel will favour them more. It works for them and against the likes of me because I will never make promises, for instance, that I will not be able to fulfill.
So, people that just needed someone they were convinced would deliver went with me. Lots of promises were made: ‘2019 I will give you House of Assembly’. ‘You will be the next commissioner’, such things. I couldn’t have made such promises, but the big men love to hear such things, and they got committed. The bigger people in the society went that way. The masses that need help, any help that would make their life better, opted for me. This is what usually happens when women are in the scene.
You have ambition to represent your people fruitfully, but you are going to be the only woman in a House brimming with 23 men. How do you see yourself faring?
It looks a bit scary right now, sitting alone amidst so many men; but I’ve had men to contend with in the path to now: during the primary, at the general election and along the entire process of declaring my intention to run for the House of Assembly up to when the election came and passed. So, I’ve experienced much of what to expect.
I’m praying that I shouldn’t disappoint especially the masses who stood by me. I intend to work on laws that will grow my people and develop my area. I hope to have bills passed too that will develop the womenfolk.
It has dawned on me that because I’ll be the only woman in the House, I will be representing not just the men and women of my immediate constituency but also all the women across the state. Welfare of children will also be my concern.
From your experience in politics to this day, what words do you have for women eying active politics?
For you to go far in politics as a woman, you have to be driven by passion. You must see politics as a calling, not just the venture of vying for an office. If you do not have passion for impactful politics, you will start the process only to back down.
You must be focused and determined, because it’s not easy. The ride to where we are today was a hectic one for me. You have to undergo endless campaigns, depriving your husband and children of yourself despite your personal resolve to be there for them always; and you must be sure of the people that are working with you. Are they committed to the cause? If they are not, they will be the ones to sell you out. You need a handful of committed people around you. I would have been rigged out if I didn’t have them. So, I’ll tell women to be determined and to be prayerful.