Folake Marcus-Bello

In Nigerian politics today, do you think women are fairly represented at both the elective and appointive positions?

ou would notice that I started with a smile on my face. The question is, do women deserve it? Yes! Do we work hard for it? Yes! When you look at campaigns and voting patterns, women vote more than men. And so, when you look at it from the participatory point of view, their representation is not good enough. The issue is, let us leave representation and let us talk about elections. There is nowhere in the world, whether in a corrupt or in an incorrupt society, that you will not require a lot of funding for politics. The women do not have the financial muscle. It is not the administration, it is not the idea to campaign, but the women do not have the financial muscle. That is number one. Number two, culturally, in Africa and, because we are in Nigeria, the women should be seen and not heard. And once a woman is heard she gets labeled in several ways; she is not submissive, she is too aggressive; and she is controlling the men. Also, as a continuation of that, how many African men have the confidence to stand the behind a strong woman? Not many. And for most of them, a marriage, in Africa, is a family institution. When you marry a man, you don’t marry him as an individual, you marry his family, you marry his race, you marry his people and he marries your people. And so, where a man is confident enough, and it is usually a thorn in the flesh for the family, the man is now left in-between his family and his wife. So, for a long time, it is not only a Nigerian problem, it is an African problem. People cite Rwanda, but we must remember that Rwanda went to war and so, men are not there. So, that is the situation for the elective positions. For the appointive positions, when you look at the quantum, the quality of the positions that we hold, it is not bad. But politics is a game of numbers. Are the women there? No! Jokingly and unfortunately, when you raise it with some of the men, they will tell you, oh, you women have lost your chance. You are shouting about money of Nigeria and in the last regime, it was the woman who was Minister for Finance. It was women who were there. At a particular time, women were in-charge of the oil and they were incharge of the money. But we will still appeal that if culturally and financially, we are not capable, then what men should realise is that women are born administrators and managers. It is from the time we were born that our parents take us to the market and they teach us how to manage what we have. So, we should be given a chance. Women who are good managers should be sorted out and used. We thank the government for now. We are the finance minister. We are United Nations Deputy Secretary General. We are also in Foreign Affairs and so on and