The wife of the President, Mrs Aisha Buhari, on Wednesday stressed the need for more women to show interest and participate in partisan politics.
Buhari made this assertion at a 2-day Nigeria Women Political Stakeholders Summit in Abuja with the theme: “Increasing the Participation of Women in Governance process in Nigeria,” organised by the National Council of Women Societies (NCWS).
The wife of the president noted that the decline in participation of women in governance has led to poor national development in the country.
According to her, in spite of the good intention of this administration to actively engage women in governance, there has been an alarming decline of women participation.
Mrs Buhari, who was represented by the former deputy governor of Plateau State, Dame Tallen, lamented the alarming decline in the statistics of women participation in governance, saying it would not augur well for national development.
“Since 1999 there has been an alarming decline in the statistics of women in governance, something has gone terribly wrong, and we women need to speak out and do something about it.
“We make up 50 per cent of this country’s population and we cannot continue to be sidelined in the decision making process of this country”.
Earlier, Gloria Shoda, President of NCWS, said that insensitivity of the government was responsible for most problems confronting women.
She opined that the recurring issues of women are not limited to poverty, unemployment, lack of access, lack of any social support system, inequality and the abysmal levels of women participation and representation in decision making in the political parties structures an in government.
Shoda added that the society has decided to fight for the thirty five percent affirmative action to help change the narratives of Nigeria’s politics.
She said that going forward the society would, henceforth, negotiate with and partner with any political party that would implement the 35 per cent affirmative action in filling it’s political party leadership positions.
“We will partner with parties that will respect the 35 per cent affirmative action in selection of candidates for the 2019 general elections, prioritise women issues in its manifestos, and implement the 35 per cent action in its appointments when it wins the elections”.
The chairman House of Representative on Women Affairs and Social Development, Mrs Stella Ugwu representing the Speaker of the House of representative, noted that the representation of women in the house was quite low.
According to her, in the house of representatives there are only 22 women out of the 360 members, which is not too impressive.