Towards A More Gender Friendly 2019

Following the bid to ensure that Nigeria lives up to the 35 per cent Affirmative Action set by the Beijing Platform for action, to which Nigeria is a signatory, and considering the fact that the political dispensation has less than the desired women’s involvement in leadership positions, some Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are already bracing up to achieve this goal in 2019. This formed the centre of discussion at the commemoration of the United Nations Democracy Day, held at the UN Information Centre in Ikoyi, recently.

The NGOs, which officially unveiled the Strategies To Achieve Gender Equality for Women Coalition (STAGE), was initiated by the Women Entrepreneurs Association of Nigeria (WEAN) with a steering committee comprising seven other NGOs.

In her address, the Executive Director, Women Entrepreneurs Association of Nigeria (WEAN), and Co-Chair, The STAGE for Women Coalition, Dr. Angela Daniel said:

“We believe that women have a stake, but what we have seen is a democracy without women and there has to be a change. To have that change, some people must have to start the work and that is what we have done. Women are a strong force in this nation, as the population is there and they have the skills. They are focused and so, we should not wait for things to go worse than they already are.

“We have allowed our men, husbands and brothers to take charge all these years and we have noticed it is the same thing all over. The women need to be there, because they are better managers. We believe strongly that when we have women in these positions, they will effect more changes than what we have seen so far and we know that women can do it.”

While describing democracy as a universal value based on the freely expressed will of the people to determine their own political, economic, social and cultural systems, as well as full participation in all aspects of their lives, she noted that though democracies all over the world share some common features, there is no single model of democracy, as each group of people continuously work to carve out a suitable system for themselves in the ever-changing global trend.

“Gender equality in leadership roles has increasingly become a strong global concern for its expected returns to the society. Seeing that Gender equality and women’s rights are key to addressing the unfinished business of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the post-2015 framework for Sustainable Development Goals is most likely to retain a strong, stand-alone goal on gender equality and women’s empowerment, as recommended by the UN High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

“We are reminding the Government and Nigerians that the hallmark of successful and stable democracies is the presence of a strong and freely operating civil society, and also that a “democracy without women,” which Nigeria has operated over the past 16 years, has had obvious negative developmental consequences on the larger segment of the Nigerian populace.”

She said part of what the steering committee is doing to achieve this aim is by mentoring young girls through a partnership with other social groups.

“We are also carrying the boys along because by the time these girls would become leaders, there would also be men that would become leaders, too. That will bring about the type of relationship that will give us the kind of result we expect. The boys and girls would listen to each other and we would have a balanced system, where everybody will get a good return from democracy.”

The Director, UNIC, Mr Ronald Kayanja said the UN is fully involved with women including The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on women based programmes.

“I am so happy that women organisations have come together and the UN will continue to support them. We did that in the past elections in terms of capacity building and any other support we can give.

“In the UN, we think that in addition to other issues, one of the problems women face is that most of them are not competent enough to be leaders and so, it is not enough to say that you want them to be elected into leadership positions. They must perform well to give confidence to the younger ones to become leaders and so, UNESCO is working on the programme called ‘gender and leadership empowerment,’ where they train women to become effective leaders. We also have what we call ‘women situation room’ to ensure that more women participate as voters.

“The UN is happy with the progress Nigeria is making for setting a good example in Africa, as a democratic society. There are not many countries in Africa, where you have leadership moving from one political party to the other peacefully and where a political leader conceded to defeat and handed over to another. It is a very good example. Societies must also develop democratic groups and so one of the areas democracy should focus on is inclusion of women and we are glad that democracy is strong in Nigeria.”

Executive Director of Forum for African women educationalists (FAWE) Virgy Onyene, said that being a member of STAGE afford them the opportunity to change the atmosphere pervading Nigeria presently.

“We also want to use the opportunity to explore avenues for empowering and encouraging women to sit up, come out and indicate interest in leadership positions from the Presidency down to the ward councillor seats across the 36 states of the federation.

“Even in institutes of learning, we want the girl child to take up leadership positions because they have the tenacity to remain in positions of decision-making. We want to identify areas such as health, where women need to standout too. We realised that so many things are not done properly, even taking up leadership positions in their homes. We want women to take up the leadership mantle wherever it exists.”

Executive Director, Centre for Correction and Human development, Mrs. Agoziem Evelyn, whose centre works with trafficked victims, drug addicts and individuals with dysfunctional lives, said that having been involved with reintegrating victims back to the society, they too can lead.

“The essence of STAGE is to bring women to the fore and to the political front. So, we are sensitising women to come forward because when they do, things will change and they have a way of doing things right, and this will go a long way in helping our country.”