Although, on this day every year, every other thing takes a back seat, to allow women to have their moment; a time to celebrate themselves and their strength, this particular year is significant because of the challenges facing countries of the world; their impact on women and the roles they have had to and are still playing to help ameliorate the problems.
Across the world, there are economic and security challenges and some countries are at war with one another. In all of these, the most affected persons are the children and women. Despite how much all of these affect the women, they have continued to support the men, protect their children while holding their homes together.
In this special publication to mark the 2024 International Women’s Day, we pay a special tribute to women who have had to take up the role of raising families due to the death of their spouses from attacks by insurgents and bandits in parts of the country. We also salute the Ukrainian women and Palestinian women who are going over board at this point to protect their children, who are being endangered by wars, just as they provide support to their spouses.
Since the last International Women’s Day celebration, a lot has happened in Nigeria. The country experienced a change in leadership through the 2023 general elections, where the fortunes of women in that enterprise were anything but encouraging. In fact, instead of progress, we witnessed a decline in the number of women who secured seats in the National Assembly. In the current Senate, we have just four women, 12 in the House of Representatives and 48 in the state assembly. This is against the previous 9th assembly, where we had seven women in the Senate, 12 in the House of Representatives and 44 in the state assemblies. This publication recognizes the feat recorded in Borno State, where the first female local government chairman emerged. We give kudos to her. It is worthy of note also that a woman was appointed a Comptroller General of Nigeria Immigration Service and upon retirement, another woman replaced her.
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So while the men folk in Nigeria celebrate the women today, it is time to critically look into the issue of political inclusion of women in the nation’s affairs. There is a need for the National Assembly to look for a way of deliberately assisting the women to feature more prominently on the political scene, as events have clearly shown that unless policies are made to include women, they will continue to struggle in this regard. That is why this year’s theme for the celebration; “Invest in women: Accelerate progress”, is apt. This theme is a call on all stakeholders to be intentional about involving women in the general affairs of the world.
While women in the formal sector are breaking barriers, like the first female chief judge of Kano State, and the ‘strong’ women of Akwa Ibom State, we have others doing exploits in the informal sector. In this publication, we feature the First Lady, Mrs Remi Tinubu, highlighting some of her efforts in improving the welfare of women. We take on the minister charged with issues affecting women and she speaks about some policies of the current administration tailored towards women. We also showcase a female mechanic, working shoulder-to-shoulder with her male counterparts in fixing engines. We have a woman who, aside making a living off furniture making, has empowered many in the trade.
Then, from Katsina, we have the story of a woman in a field, not necessarily the comfort zone for women, shoe making. We also featured a female sculpture. We have the Ogun women, who are making money through the preservation of a tradition; the adire. In virtually all sectors, women are represented and we give them kudos for that. So, as they celebrate themselves and children and men join in paying tribute to the female gender, we at Daily Trust, wish them a happy celebration.
