Sarah Jubril
The first female Presidential aspirant, Mrs Sarah Jubril, on Tuesday advised women to pursue their political ambitions without fear.
Jubril gave the advice during an all-African Women Summit organised by the Society for Empowerment and Self Reliance (SESER), Nigeria.
The summit had the theme “the Power of Negotiation: the Role of Women in Political Leadership, Economic Development and Peace Building’’.
She said ignorance could bring fear to women who wanted to participate in politics, saying they should not be intimated by their male counterparts.
“Women not participating in politics is not the issue of money rather they should equip themselves; women should take responsibility because politics is not just men affairs.
“The issues of marginalisation is without any sense of shame, Nigeria seems to have the least participation in politics and governance in Africa.
“Nigeria being the giant of Africa should not be in the situation,” Jubril said.
The National Coordinator of SESER, Mrs Rosemary Effiong, said women’s political participation had been recognised internationally as an important measure of the status of women in any particular country.
“In recent years, women’s participation in politics and decision-making has received some attention across the world.
“Women remain seriously underrepresented in decision-making positions, in spite of the fact that more than 50 per cent of the world’s population is women.
“They lack access to political decision making as compared to their male counterparts at all levels of governance, she said.
Effiong said women’s equal participation in decision-making and politics is not only a demand for simple justice, but also a necessary pre-requisite for women’s interests to be taken into account in the political process.
She, however, said poverty, access to financial resources and unemployment were some of the challenges facing the women.
The Chief Executive Officer of Women Aid Foundation in Ghana, Mrs Vivian Anagbonu, said the objective of the summit was to advocate structural changes in the political framework to increase women’s participation
She also said the summit would recommend key strategies to reposition women aspiring for leadership positions.(NAN)
