Women journalists in Nigeria have called for the passage of a special seat bill to ensure increased participation of women in governance and promote gender inclusion.
This was the focus at the Fit for Inclusion programme organised by Women in Media Development Initiative(WIMDI) in collaboration with Nigeria Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ) and Gender Strategy Advancement International (GSAI).
The National Vice President, NAWOJ zone D, Chizoba Ogbeche noted that the special seat bill, sponsored by Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu and 12 other lawmakers, proposes reserving seats for women in the Senate, House of Representatives, and State Assemblies.
“Women are being discriminated against politically. A woman knows what the problems of women are. Before now, we have 5 bills, including the special seats for women, but it was thrown out because the people were not well engaged.”
She harped on the need to sensitize the people on the importance of the bills in order to hold their representatives accountable.
“The campaign now starts from the grassroots that is from bottom-up instead of up to bottom. There is a need for constitutional amendment for the special seats. We don’t call it women seats but they are reserved for women to correct the imbalance.”
“We need more men to buy into the idea of special seats. This bill is an opportunity for women to speak more on women issues.”
The chairperson NAWOJ FCT, Bassey Ita-Ikpang who also spoke, highlighted the need to avoid objectifying women and focus on the issues saying women have all it takes to lead.
“Let’s always face the issue and forget about looking at a woman as a woman or her buts, let’s look at the woman as a woman and what she has to offer. I think women in the media have the responsibility of amplifying everywhere.”
Opinion leaders
She pointed out that all pooling booths are literarily a owned by people who are opinion leaders in their various communities.
“Whether we like it or not. Polling units are owned by people. So let us do more of the enlightenment. Let us enlighten the women to know that election goes beyond collecting wrappers to begin to demand passage of special seat ball.
“Men have this narrative that we don’t like ourselves, but that’s a narrative that the society has written and the men have written and kept for us. The truth of the matter is that we like ourselves.”
She tasked women to begin to begin to feel, think, and talk about the fact that we like ourselves and for the media to do more of the ethical reporting.
Adaora Sydney Jack, Executive Director of GSAI, noted that some women who have experienced running for office firsthand are so traumatized that they are not attracted to the polls again.
”I’m telling you this because I have run for elections, on TV I do critiscise those in political offices until I went to run . Upon my return, i was no more diplomatic when I talk about politics. In politics, what you see sitting outside is different from what it is on the field”.
“To actively participate and have a voice, you need to have more women in the room. Even if the room is bad, you need to get in to fix it because you cannot fix it from outside.”
She urged women to make efforts to contribute their quota to ensuring the special seat bill is passed.
She lamented the fact that we have only three women left at the Senate making it difficult to pull their weight?
“What decisions can just 3 women at the senate make? We have only 15 out of 360 people. at the house of rep. How much is their voice? What can they negotiate? At the state Assembly, only 15 States have women in them. The other states, no women, so imagine that you have chairman committee women in Parliament as a man. So you have men presiding over women committees.”
She charged that beyond the special seat, we should look at how women political participation brings about development and improvement to social welfare.
“We are also appealing that it is not a bill for some women to have and get into politics. It is a bill for every young woman every woman with disability. Every woman who is interested in this nation because at the end of the day it is still us that will achieving.”
Lara Owoeye-Wise, a veteran broadcaster who participated in the exercise, said collective social media sensitization will help in enlightening people on the importance of special seat bill.
“If we all post it on social media and our TV station, people will get to know that women in the media are serious because you know what if they pass this Bill and our voice will take the Lead. We look at this as our ideal not just for us but for the posterity of our daughters, as our sisters, and for the women who have tried and tried again, there are so many women. If you tell them, are you running they will not be interested.”
The founder of TOS group, Osasu Oguche added that politics involves decision-making. So, it’s important that we all lend our voices all get involved.
“We all have the power. It is our collective initiative as women for our daughter and for the betterment of Nigeria, so we all need to get involved. Even if you are not interested in politics like myself. You still need to add your voice because we need to be able to create room for women who are interested. Who has the capacity to enter politics to be able to do so because we need their voices at the highest echelon of power.”
The event featured aerobics, Yoga and a mental health talk by professionals.
Lateefah Ibrahim