Dr. Joel Ademisoye, Akure.
SIR: I am a living witness to many of the contributions of the Forum of Wives of Ondo State Officials (FOWOSO). The positive impacts of FOWOSO’s economic empowerment efforts, skills acquisition and literacy education for women and girl-child as recounted in the report on the FOWOSO’s just concluded aecond Anniversary held at the International Cultural Centre, The Dome in Akure, are compelling and overwhelming to ignore, considering the robust scope, visibility and meaningful effects of their programmes on societal progress so far.
Let me seize the opportunity to congratulate the founder and leader of FOWOSO, Arabinrin Betty Anyanwu-Akeredolu and kudos to the members of this unique organisation, for their dedication, commitment and support to the successful story of the past two years in Ondo State.
The truth is, that the new state and status of women and girl-child as recorded, is unprecedented and historical in our state.
Indeed, FOWOSO is the new ‘Sheriff’ in Ondo State with its ideology, approach and programs in efforts to address, treat and solve the perennial challenges facing women using a holistic or comprehensive approach to shine lights on the historical problem of treating women from an inferior perspective in the Nigerian society.
Of interest in this new approach, is FOWOSO’s inclusion approach involving the focus on the family and girl-child as an important parameters in the conceptualization, defining and understanding of what constitutes a woman’s challenges in Nigeria.
For instance, I think FOWOSO pulled the ‘bull by the horn’ in debunking the cultural myths on the acceptance, menace and nuisance of rape of young girls in Ondo State
In addition to its economic empowerment efforts, its activism and educaton strategy in promoting the women’s interests and rights in Nigerian politics and as an enabler of women seeking and holding political offices in Ondo State.
I found this political reorientation of women to be a new frontier for a gender gap, who is perpetually shutout of the country’s political system, their denial of active participation and the freedom to exercise their constitutional given rights to seek political offices like men in Nigeria.
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FOWOSO as a ‘change agent’ in the past two years, it has been busy mobilizing, organizing and fielding women candidates for political offices in the state.
Imagine in Nigeria where female constitutes 49.34 per cent (Source: World Bank, 2016 population figures) of the country’s population, a sizable figure to pay attention to in terms of male to female ratio in the country, this is not reflected in the country’s political sphere, for example, out of the 36 state governors, there is no woman governor at all.
All the state government houses are occupied by men, meaning that women are shut out of governance at the state level. A similar picture is painted at the national level of the country’s political structure.
Thus at the federal level of governance and in the National Assembly, with the positions of the President of the country, President of the Senate and Speaker of the House of Representatives are held by men.
In the two years of FOWOSO’s existence, it is a truism that the organisation has taken bold steps, constructive actions and implemented many viable and beneficial empowerment programs to change the women’s irrelevant and pathetic status in the country’s scheme of things.
FOWOSO’s arrival and its short time of existence in Ondo State, it has became a social institution, which made a paradigm shift in the public perception, philosophy of and government’s treatment of women in the Sunshine State.
Today, it is a new dawn for women and the girl-child in many areas of life in Ondo State
- Dr. Joel Ademisoye, Akure.
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