‘Women’s inclusion in governance, germane to Nigeria’s development’

The Director, International Society of Media, Mrs Moji Makanjuola, has taken a swipe at what she noted as dismal percentage of women in elective positions in Nigeria.

She stressed that if democracy is government of the people for the people by the people, and designed to deliver greater good to the greater majority, it has failed the teeming women of the nation.

She described the inclusion of women in governance as germane to growth and development of the people and nation.

“It will indeed speak, in a very large proportion, to our underdevelopment.  It can radically transform our economic ambience and usher in prosperity.

“The dismal percentage of women in elective and legislative offices which averages about 6.5 percent relegates women who constitute approximately half of Nigeria’s population of about 200 million, to an inconsequential majority, if the status quo does not change,” she said.

She spoke at a capacity building workshop for Journalists in the North West, North East and North Central regions of Nigeria organised by the International Press Centre with the support of the European Union.

While noting that women inclusiveness in governance as a human right, she pointed out that “the processes that institute such non-inclusiveness of women, can by no dint of imagination, be called democratic.”

“The process can never be democratic, which stifles the voices of women and makes inadequate or no provision for their welfare.

“No meaningful development can take place in a society which relegates or condemns 50 percent of its citizenry to penury, dis-empowerment, voiceless and non-inclusive governance. Development will always be lopsided.

“A country where more than 50% of its populace is excluded and not empowered, regardless of the size of its human and material resources, is indeed an abjectly poor and unstable nation,” she said.

The Director noted that smaller African countries such as Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya had been able to break the non-inclusion barriers even though they have significantly less women population.