Obasanjo said this while speaking at the Women’s Power Lunch 2018 organised by Murtala Muhammed Foundation in Lagos, noting that his experience in governance between 1999 and 2007 had clearly shown this postulation.
His assertion was immediately corroborated by the former president of the Republic of Mauritius, Prof. Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, who urged African women to fight against what she described as gender inequality, maintaining that women had power to be advocate of their cause.
Obasanjo, who was the chairman of the Board of the Murtala Muhammed Foundation, specifically recalled that women who served as minister in his cabinet were nominated by their states but by his own initiatives, declared that those nine women eventually proved themselves in delivering on their duties and be more reliable in politics.
“When I was elected as president and I asked the states to give me the nominations of people to be appointed as ministers, they did not include women. They just did not include women but fortunately, I had opportunity to set up a retreat composed of men and women who had been with us during the campaign and I was there for one week.
“I saw the performances of all the women that were there. And it was out of those women who were not recommended that I was able to take nine women to be part of my cabinet.
“Women are more reliable in politics than men. I don’t know of experiences in other countries, but here in Nigeria, when you hold your meeting with women and they say good night, it is good night. If it is men and they say good night, they are going for another meeting. And when you ask them, why you went to other meeting, they will say, it is politics. Not staying in one location is politics,” he recalled.
The former president revealed that consequent upon this he faced more intrigues in his eight years in other than he ever witnessed in his entire life put together, declaring that Nigerian men-politicians played their intrigues with impunity and cared less about consequence.
“In my short period in politics, I saw more intrigues more than I have seen in all the rest of my life put together. And they do it with impunity,” he said.
Obasanjo said what was left for Nigerian women to be relevant and play their role was not just education but must ensure that they take their place in politics “because we live in a male chauvinism world.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment