Nigeria is not ready to have a female president,
women from Kenya and Nigeria, who spoke
exclusively to our correspondent on the sidelines
of a conference tagged ‘Role of Women In
Emerging Democracy,’ have lamented.
The conference held at the Nigerian Institute for
International Affairs, Lagos, on Friday.
One of the women, a consultant clinical
pharmacist and public health manager, Bisi
Bright, said, “To have a woman in a position of
authority takes a lot. Although we have female
CEOs and deputy governors, I don’t think we are
ready yet for a female governor, not to talk of
female president.”
Her position was shared by the Chairman of the
House Committee on Diaspora Affairs, Abike
Dabiri-Erewa, who said a lot of people in Nigeria
were not ready for a female governor.
Dabiri-Erewa, who confirmed that she would
declare her intention to contest for the Lagos
State governorship seat after the APC national
convention, said, “To get a woman in position is
difficult no matter how good she is. I am sure a
lot of people in Nigeria are not yet ready for a
female governor. This is the challenge women
face. No matter how good a woman is, those
that take the decisions are men. In Nigeria’s
politics, women are doing very badly in terms of
numbers. The number of women in politics in
Nigeria is less than six per cent. That is the
worst in the whole of Africa.”
She gave reasons why women can’t make it yet
to the very exalted political positions, saying, “To
contest elections in Nigeria, one has to spend a
lot of money and women don’t have huge
amounts of money to spend. Also, women battle
with cultural stereotypes. Apart from these,
women do not believe in themselves. If a woman
comes out today and says she wants to be
president of Nigeria, most women will not
support her.”
Dabiri-Erewa, who was one of the speakers at
the ROWEAD conference under the general theme
‘Women As Agents of Change,’ urged women to
brace for and get involved in governance despite
the challenges, noting that with their
compassionate nature, they had the ability to
bring the insecurity situation in the country under
control and to restore peace. She added that
without more women in governance, the situation
would get worse in 2015.
The Vice-Chancellor of International University of
Professional Studies, Professor Koi Muchira
Tirima, observed that Nigerian women shared a
similar fate with the women in Kenya, her
country.
Tirima, said to be the youngest female vice-
chancellor on the continent, said, “My country is
not yet ready for a woman president. Martha
Karua, a four-time minister and somebody who
had served in the Kenyan parliament for 20
years, was the only woman in Kenya who
contested for president in 2014. She is brilliant, a
no-nonsense and intelligent person but our
people did not elect her. That for me is
problematic. People use double standards to
judge women. When a woman is a hardliner, they
say she is insensitive and emasculates men.
When a man displays the same tendency, people
say he is strong and determined. We need to
change the language that we use to describe
female candidates. We should stop using phrases
like, ‘she is just a woman.”
On her part, the Chairperson of Women In
Business, Adeola Azeez, stated that women did
not command enough number in government to
warrant one of them becoming president. Azeez
said, “There are women who have the ability to
lead at the moment but before you say you want
to have a female president, there must be a
significant number of women already in
government and in the corridors of power. Even
though 51 per cent of women make up the
population of Nigeria, we do not have enough to
get the critical mass that will make us ready for
a female president. there is also the issue of
stereotype.”
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