Akin Fadeyi Foundation (AFF), Nigeria’s foremost public accountability non-profit organisation, at the recently held global virtual summit canvassed empowerment of women as a proactive way to ensuring inclusive governance at different tiers of government.

Speakers after the other at the global event condemned present arrangements in some African countries for not respecting the United Nations (UN) affirmative action.

Affirmative action, according to United Nations is a set of procedures design to eliminate unlawful discrimination among applicants, remedy the results of such prior discrimination, and prevent such discrimination in the future.

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Speaking at the media conversation, Mr. Akin Fadeyi, Executive Director, Akin Fadeyi Foundation while calling for more women participation in politics, he reminded women to rise up and fight for it. The foundation also unveiled a competition ‘What women can do’, where women can pitch for business ideas and win gifts.

“Why are women in Nigeria taking the backstage, what happened to the vibrant strong culture of political participation by Nigerian women? Why is it that from 1999 till date when we have one hundred and nine houses of representative members we’ll have just three women in the house and at the senate, we’ll have just eight women? Why is it that Nigeria signed affirmative action at the United Nations but the Nigerian government sued against it? Four things we should identify here: The growing voice of women in community work from various fairs of the country, there has to be an intentional wiliness of cultural restriction in our conception of what defines women into political participation and policy friendly. “There is a need for expansion of activism of women organisations supporting increased participation of women in politics. We have to agree now; women should be allowed to take economic roles and shouldn’t bear the pain of weaker vessels.”

Lending his voice Mr. Simon Kolawole, who is also the Board Chairman, Akin Fadeyi Foundation noted that looking at what is happening in the political realm; Nigerians shouldn’t get discouraged by what they see because it is as if when we take one step forward in terms of gender inclusion we take several steps backward.