We’re hopeful Lagos will have female speaker soon —Tejuosho

The lawmaker representing Mushin Constituency 1in the Lagos State House of Assembly, Honourable (Mrs.) Olufunmilayo Tejuosho has urged more women to participate in politics as a strategy to stabilise the country.

Tejuosho, who was speaking at the just-concluded Conference of Speakers of State Houses of Assembly in Nigeria maintained that women as a stabilising factor are capable of restoring peace in the country when they are adequately engaged in the affairs of the nation.

According to her, women are agents of change. Therefore we will continue to encourage women as stabilisers of the home-front to come out and stabilise the nation as a whole.

The lawmaker who is the Chairman, House Committee on Information, Strategy and Security reiterated that it would be a good omen for the nation if more women will participate in politics. She added that women need continuous encouragement to come into politics. “Women are good managers of the home and we also have the ability to multi-task. We take care of our husbands, children, the home-front and also take care of our offices.

“For a woman to get to her workplace in the early hours of the day with her male counterpart, it means she must have woken up hours earlier.

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“We are not discouraged as women. Initially, we had to struggle to get to where we are. Now, the political parties are saying that it is free for women to run for elective positions. They do not have to pay. It is a form of encouragement. We have been given the chance to compete with the men. We know that there is nothing that the men are doing that the women cannot do.

“I have always said that what a woman cannot do, can never be done. I am not discouraged as a woman. There are lots of women that can hold those positions and we will continue to encourage ourselves,” she said.

On the issue of  only one female speaker out of 36 state speakers in Nigeria, she said: “We are not discouraged. We have had female speakers before in different states and we are hopeful that in the nearest future, there would be female speakers in Lagos.

Speaking on the Conference of Speakers, Tejuosho said; “it is an avenue to deliberate on issues that affect all the different states, hammer on the peculiarities and the general things that affect us. It is in this conference that we discussed about the amendment of the constitution, as well as the clamour for a special status for Lagos State in particular,”she said.