Sola Ojo, Kaduna
Experienced and young female politicians under the Women In Politics (WIP) Network in Kaduna State are currently holding their quarterly strategic meeting ahead of 2023 elections.
The WIP project in Kaduna is being championed by Legal Awareness for Nigerian Women (LANW), with support from National Democratic Institute (NDI) and UKAid, with participants drawn from different political parties and wards.
One of the objectives of the meeting is to build skills of participants on essential leadership skills required for young women in Kaduna politics in Kaduna State, according to Hannatu Ahuwan, WIP Project Officer.
“This is a follow up to the meeting we had in June where we brought together politicians who are seasoned female politicians,” she said.
“They have contested before and are now coming to share their experiences with these young ones. Some of the young women we have here have shown interest in politics and we are here to expose them to the nitty-gritty of politics.
“We have the opportunity of bringing the seasoned female politicians to mentor the young ones who are the mentees so we can have more women in our political space because what we have now in terms of women occupying elective offices is not encouraging.
“The essence is to increase women participating in politics as you may have noticed that we have more of old women, but we need these young women to learn the ropes and take over from them.
“We want to review our strategy to understand the bottlenecks, the success and what we can do better. We are going to look at leadership and gender socialisation and roles and see what prospects we have ahead of the 2023 election.
“In the entire Northwest states, we have only one female lawmaker and that is a poor representation for women. So, it is important that we start this early in order to cover more ground before the next election,” Hannatu stressed.
A young female politician, Sarah Maiyaki, said her meeting with seasoned female politicians has been positive with plenty of good outcomes.
“We have those that have been in the House of Assembly, State Assembly, local government chairmen giving us first hand leadership skills as young female politicians, especially as we look forward to another round of elections in Nigeria,” she said.
“We are looking at having a female as Governor in Kaduna State come 2023. If we can have a lady as Deputy, I don’t think there is anything wrong in her becoming the Governor because there is a saying that, ‘what a man can do a woman can do better’.
“That is our prayer and we know with what the present administration is doing in women empowerment in Kaduna State, we know that is possible. As a mentee now, what I have learnt and achieved is that there is hope in women occupying big public offices in the land and we are not going to give up in our quest to achieve that.”