When legislation says ‘NO’,
Election 2023 should say ‘YES’!
We must show NASS
That the voters know Best!!!
Women must refuse to be legislated against. Their combined vote in 2023 can install most of the women seeking office even if it requires voting across party lines. Favour the party with women candidates. Even women failed to support women before. There was once a woman presidential candidate. At the primaries she had one vote. It is time to redress the wrongs.
Apology: My article last week entitled ‘Evans; 25% female politicians inadequate in 2022’ assumed that the new bill for 111 Special seats for Nigerian women in National Assembly, (NASS) was a certainty. Sadly, my hopes and those of millions of females, 17yrs old+,[18 by 2023] and gender-equality males were dashed NASS. Indeed, NASS did some good legislative work devolving travel to states and empowering LGAs but it also legislated against women. It is the NASS male population which fears losing out and is fighting back, even though no NASS member would have lost his seat.
Feeble excuses of a lack of lobbying are pathetic mistruths and bad excuses for perpetuating a wrong. Someone even said the politicians had to vote according to the dictates of their constituencies as if they ever actually consult back home. They merely throw some palliative party sharing food bags, keke, generators, grinders, motorcycles and sewing machines in huge numbers. Nigeria has the only legislature worldwide so well-self-paid that its members can privately do such things costing multiples of millions and still have enough to live like kings and queens. Meanwhile the tax man chases us around. As if Obama, Trump, Johnson or Merkel even had access to such huge salaries for such ‘Political Palliative Parties’! There politicians’ work is ‘LEGISLATIVE NOT PALLIATIVE’; making laws easing the plight of the people not just providing for party hangers-on.
Cut Nigerian politicians’ ‘Salaries and Perks’ by 75% because they are ‘SAPping’ Nigeria dry before politicians also start distributing half-full four litres petrol as party palliative as someone disgracefully and dangerously did at a party.
So when will we follow most of the world and many African countries which allow womanhood to flourish politically and not just as a decoration? They did not change the constitution or increase the cost of governance to elevate women to political authority.
The bills seek a minimum of 35% for executive members for each party executive to be women, 10 women ministers per executive council and 111 extra seats in NASS. They are not mutually exclusive but stepping-stones to equality. The morality around funding of the 111 extra seats is a huge moral dilemma with poverty at 75%. This new formula of ‘supernumerary but equal’ actually exposes NASS to accusations of selfishness. The men won but no congratulations. They should go home shamefaced to their families for losing a monumental opportunity.
The women are 49-51% of the population. They must make their political presence felt. The world around realises how valuable good women are in governance. Nigeria is sadly wrong stepping! If the NASS had approved the 35% female number, we would be praising its members for achieving the results at zero monetary cost.
Let us not be sentimentally misguided about the proneness to law-breaking by one sex over the other when given the responsibility and opportunity to serve. Both sexes can be brilliant or brutal, helpful or harmful and have historically often chosen to serve themselves rather than serve. Nigeria has witnessed ruthless and mindless acquisition of bank, pension, customer, private sector and government public funds and unexplainable shocking decisions and judgements by both men and women trusted to hold the reins of private, public civil service, judicial, police or legislative power. On the domestic front, hired help, married partners and now even children of both sexes demonstrated the complete spectrum of devotion and deviation from goodness and honesty to lying, bullying, theft, abuse both verbal and physical and even murder. However, for every criminal man or woman there are numerous good Nigerians willing and able to serve– hopefully? They are often left out because they will not permit illegality, play bad ball politically or turn a blind eye to illegality. The political and sometimes private sector moral problem is how to get the non-criminally minded, males and especially many more females who are untainted by corruption or a huge favour-laden burden hindering their potential competence. Sadly ‘Assistance’ must be paid back in cash and kind, always detrimentally to ‘Project Nigeria’.
We can support this struggle. Every woman, qualified morally, seeking election in 2023 should get elected.
The task is to strategise to ‘MAKE THE FEMALE VOTE COUNT’ in 2023.
First: ‘Get All Women To Vote’ with campaigns targeting those who will be 18 by 2023 with ‘Girl GO Vote’ songs and T shirts etc. included in Nollywood scripts, Music etc. by entertainment stars aimed at getting the PVC.
Second: ‘Get Most Women to Vote for Women’ even across party. Make any party which does not field some women uncomfortable by withdrawing female support and directing support towards parties which field women. Encourage women in one party to vote for a woman in another party to fight the greater battle for a greater Nigerian female political footprint.
Women: What cannot be won by legislation and selection can be won by a ‘woman-slide election’.
‘WOMEN: WHAT CANNOT BE LEGISLATED CAN AND MUST BE ELECTED!!’