Women Directors Seek Inclusion In Nigeria’s Top Leadership Positions

THE President and Chairman, Council of the Institute of Directors (IOD), Eniola Fadayomi, has called on the Nigerian government and corporate organisations to consider women for top leadership positions in order to ensure gender balance in the public and private sector of the economy Fadayomi made the call at the luncheon organised by women members of IOD in Lagos recently.

She also called on women directors to build up careers and fashion out ways to overcome the present socio-economic and political environment.

According to her, many countries of the world have been making efforts to bridge the gap between men and women in leadership positions, whether in politics or on corporate boards.

“In Nigeria, the representation of women, though has improved marginally, is still very low compared to what obtains in other countries, especially in the developed nations.

A consideration of the first 20 listed companies in the Nigerian Stock Exchange revealed that seven companies have no single woman on their board; five of the companies have a woman each, while eight of the companies have either two or three women on their boards.

It has been said that Nigeria stands to be the world’s 15th largest economy by 2050 and for me, this could only be realizable with women empowerment,”

she said According to her, the Governing Council of the IoD Nigeria Instituted the Women Directors’ Conference and Women Directors Luncheon in order to attract corporate national vision for women empowerment.

“The aim of this Luncheon is therefore, not only to provide venue for premier networking and interaction amongst top class women leaders, but to provide a veritable forum for women leaders in Nigeria to harness their views and opinions on salient issues and practices that affect them in their rise to top positions in the Nigerian socio-economic landscape”.

Fadayomi described the Institute of Directors as a prime leadership organisation that primarily attends to the professional and developmental needs of directors, business leaders and policy makers in the country.

The Group Chief Executive Officer, United Capital Plc, Oluwatoyin Sanni said statistics have shown that women do better than men on the job, but only few of them get to top positions.

According Chief Nike Akande, a two time Minister of Industries, the issue of networking for women is very apt and relevant, adding that it is important for the success of any business.

For women to break political or business barriers, she said they would need to network effectively with one another.

“ If we want women in positions of authority, if we want women to be involved in the nations development, we must learn to network with one another.”