Nigeria’s Minister of Women Affairs, Uju Kennedy Ohanenye has emphasised on the need for more inclusion of Women in Politics and governance, following the crucial role they play in socio-economic development of the country.
The Minister stated this at the closeout and dissemination ceremony of Woman’s Voice and Leadership project in Abuja, the nation capital.
The Women’s Voice and Leadership project is a five-year project funded by Global Affairs Canada and supported by ActionAid Nigeria, with the aim in empowering women and promoting gender equality in FCT.
The Minister who was represented by the Principal Social Welfare officer of the Ministry, Mr. Alake Olaniran said the ministry was committed to ensuring the rights of Women were given adequate support in achieving their goals.
“Women’s Voice and Leadership, WVL has increase women participation in leadership and key decision making process in respective states driven by this project, as women have been able to utilize their leadership and negotiation skills to address overwelming issues of governance in their community in their state and the country in general.
“We appreciate ActionAid Nigeria and their implementing team for the key mine stone, and urged all to support the achievement the mandate of ensuring gender equality. We are committed to ensuring that the life’s of Nigerian Woman is transform in areas of education, free from gender violence and inclusion in politics. Our doors are open for further collaboration partnership for future programmes,” she said.
The President, Nigerian Association of Women Journalists, NAWOJ, Aisha Ibrahim said the project was aimed at tackling the barriers to gender equality and supporting the empowerment of women and girls through provision of financial and technical resources to local feminist/women’s rights organisations in Nigeria which had yielded the positive result.
“Through this project, Action Aid Nigeria has provided demonstrable evidence of its capability to effectively manage sub-granting initiatives. This is being done through the provision of multiple layers of funding and tailored capacity building support to these organizations.
Mrs. Ibrahim further called for more inclusion of Women in Politics looking at their role and selflessness towards nation building. While commending ActionAid and other partners for building the capacity of women.
” For Democracy, it has come to stay in Nigeria and for women to get their rightful place, they must participate actively in the political processes in Nigeria. We want women to encourage participation notwithstanding the obstacles they faced in the past. Women should know that we can’t stop participating in the electoral processes if we want things to change. Like they say: A journey of a thousand miles begins with a step. This is our own first step. There is a thousand more to go, but if we don’t start with the first step, we will not get to that one thousand,” she added.
The event, organised by FCT Women Voice Leadership, WVL and other eight Partners, highlighted the achievements, shared the learnings and discussion on the sustainable impact of the WVL-N project.
Credit: Voice of Nigeria
