By Lucy Ezeliora
As the world marks International Women’s Day (IWD), which draws attention to matters relating to women and girls, the Chairperson, Ohaneze Ndigbo Women’s wing worldwide, Dr. Chief Dame Hon. Rita Daniels Chukwuji, on behalf of the Ohaneze Ndigbo women world wide, have called on women in Nigeria to continually up-skill themselves and network actively, and put themselves forward confidently for greater roles in society.
Hon Rita Daniels, who spoke with our correspondent, also called on the first lady of Nigeria, Sen. Oluremi Tinubu to invest more in women and consider inclusion of more women in governance for economic development
According to her, there is need for women to be assured of more appointments and opportunities under the administration of her husband.
She said, international Women’s day is a day set aside to celebrate women, lift them up, mobilise, rehabilitate them, promote equality among them a for a brighter future.
The calls are in tandem with this year’s theme, Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress’ with a focus on addressing economic disempowerment, while the campaign theme for this year is ‘Inspire Inclusion.’ which highlights the significance of diversity and empowerment across all sectors of society.
“This is the time for women to rise above their mental barriers. A woman’s journey to success begins from harnessing the power of her mind,” she said.
Presently, the current economic realities validate the theme in almost every respect as women appear the worst hit in these hard times.
“The solution is not what the women are doing or what they are not doing. It’s a collective responsibility. Yes, Chief Daniels said, women should up-skill themselves, network actively, and should put themselves forward confidently and project themselves,”
Hon. Chukwuji explained that, women also need to know that they make up about 50 percent of the population, and so, ideally, should be found in 50 percent of the leadership positions.
“I see the gap as an opportunity for all of us to continually upscale ourselves, for us to put ourselves forward even for leadership positions and not to be discouraged if we don’t get it at all, first, try until we get there,” she said.
The women leader urged the Federal Government, to look into the critical issues affecting women in the society in giving them listening ears in view to move the nation forward.
“Invest in Women as a critical issue has never been more challenging for us. The prospect of growth for women in business and the labour force generally is already hampered by norms and stereotypes which form a big part of our culture today,” said Hon. Daniels.
“Organisations and countries, Chief Rita said, should set deliberate targets for inclusiveness because everybody loses when some are excluded.
“Nigeria cannot continue to underestimate the role women play in advancing our national interests and our country’s goals of peace, stability, and prosperity,”
“We recognise that what makes us diverse makes us strong and no nation can get ahead if about half its population is left behind,” she
“Nigeria has very poor records of gender-based violence, with many cases of exploitation, rape, and verbal and physical abuse of women and girls. Trafficking in women and girls for forced labour or prostitution is also on the rise”
In addition, young girls suffer from unhealthy traditional practices, such as female genital mutilation and early child marriage, which deprive them of their childhood and education and expose them to vesico vaginal fistula (VVF) as their frail bodies are poorly developed for marital ‘responsibilities’ like pregnancy.
The state recently passed a new law, Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAP) Act, providing for life imprisonment without an option of fine for perpetrators of female genital mutilation (FGM) in the state. The Ohaneze Women leader said there are twice as many women below the poverty line than men, and up to 19 times as many men in executive positions than women. In the corporate world, women struggle to be heard, as only few make it to the boardrooms. They battle unequal payment, and in some cases, sexual harassment.
In politics, men generally dominate, even though women show up as candidates, voters, politicians, activists, and in most cases in Nigeria, as praise-singers. Again, women tend to be treated very differently from their male counterparts, and the results of every election year tell the story.
For instance, despite women constituting 49.5 percent of Nigeria’s population, according to National Population Commission (NPC) figures, no woman has emerged president or vice president in the country’s nearly 60-year history. Similarly, no woman has emerged governor in an election.j
“We definitely do not want to have women in politics just to meet the gender diversity requirement and these women end up as flower pots or showpieces in the political scenes; we need to have dynamic, tenacious, confident women,”
“Women with history of transformational leadership need to engage strategically in progressive politics. Gladly, Nigeria doesn’t lack women with these qualities,” she said.
She lamented that there are not enough women in politics in the country.
“We have a society that is predominantly patriarchal and also very gender-biased, where the women have been programmed into a mindset that they cannot aspire beyond a certain limit. Also, politics in this clime is very dangerous and it is all about money. These issues have boxed women into a corner,” She stressed.
“The solution is that women should be encouraged to step out boldly and more. Women should rise up to support aspiring women and not further castigate them because it takes a lot of boldness and courage for any woman to rise up in our society to say they want to run for any public office,” she said.
“Today many women were not coming out because of fear and because of the mindset that women belong to the kitchen.
“ some of them are already aligning with governance but their full potential is not being harvested. There are so many intelligent women out there with the tenacity to do something for their country but they are not being encouraged,” she said
“Violence is also another reason why women don’t put themselves forward. Politics can only be dirty if you make it dirty, so you can just do it the right way if you don’t want it to be dirty,” she said.
In their quest to sanitize randomly in all spheres, The Ohaneze women Leader went further to call on all mother’s to majorly take upon them selves the duty of calling out their children from the streets of negative influences by jeopardizing the peaceful coexistence enjoyed in the region .
Therefore she said, As dedicated mothers we are appealing to the Federal government to harken to our humble supplication.
More so, if there’s stability in the fair share of positions and privileges for women in the center stage of power ,I believe most women will feel the oneness and esteem sense of belonging as we are called to be one nation
In engaging the women physically, mentally to politically, economically,and effectively participate in the limelight of leadership in various capacities in the country.
In other words, making a reliable chance of position for Empowerment to enable women become relevant in the society having known that an idle mind is a devil’s negative thoughts of dwelling. She said.