The Country Director ActionAid Nigeria Ene Obi has called on Kogi State government to improve on women inclusiveness in the governance of the state, lamenting that the current cabinet where only one woman occupying the position of commissioner does not obey gender equality in the state.
Obi made the call in Lokoja while speaking at SERVE II Women Summit on preventing violent extremism in Kogi State organised by Participation Initiative for Behavioral Change in Development (PIBCID), supported by Actionaid Nigeria and funded by Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF).
According to her, the theme of the 2020 Women Summit “I am generation equality: Realizing Woman’s Rights” was chosen to advance the cause of women in the state.
The Country Director who was represented by Mr Anicetus Atakpu the Project Coordinator Actionaid, lamented that Actionaid Nigeria having worked in Kogi State for over eleven years, women are yet to get the desired equality, stressing that the first tenure of Governor Yahaya Bello’s administration two women were appointed as commissioner, expressing displeasure over a situation where only one woman was considered as commissioner in the current dispensation.
“If in the first tenure of this government women were fighting for more position and the entire women in the government then represented 25 per cent instead of the 35 per cent affirmative action as resolved by the declaration.
Rather than moving forward in this second tenure we seem to be going backwards as women now have only one commissioner in the cabinet.
“As we are calling on the governor for more political appointment for women, there are positions such as Special Advisers , Senior Special Assistants, Board members that are yet to be announced, we are using this occasion to solicit for more women in the position of authority” Obi appealed.
While calling on Governor Yahaya Bello and his wife Hajia Rashida Bello to look into gender equality in the state , Obi lamented that many women worked under duress in their office as no avenue was created for nursing mothers to keep their children in the offices.
In her remark the wife of the state governor Mrs Rashidat Bello represented by the Deputy Governor’s wife, Mrs Mercy Onoja stated that equality for the sexes does not mean blurring the difference between human gender , noting that human society progress faster and further when men and women work together in a community.
“Stereotypes and social practices which exclude women or downplay or obstruct their free and equal participation in any field of endeavour is always an own goal against the society which permit it,” she said.
The Executive Director, PIBCID, Halimat Oiza Sadiq appealed to the state government to intensified effort in women empowerment and skill acquisition to improve their standard of living.
She encourage women to raise both male and female children equally in order to discourage gender inequality in their children.
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