2023: Expect All-Women Political Party – Josephine Anenih
These are not the best of times for Nigerian women. Politically, they have been handed the short end of the stick with very poor showing during the 2019 general elections, and abysmal representation in appointive positions both at the federal level and in the states. And with the worsening security situation and criminality in the country, they have also become endangered species. In this interview with Adekunbi Ero, executive editor, Josephine Nwogo Akubude-Anenih, a lawyer, politician, and gender activist lamented the diminishing political fortunes of Nigerian women, noting that they have not moved forward politically in the past 12 years. According to Anenih, “Ex-President Jonathan tried to achieve the 35 percent affirmative action in appointive positions; we almost made the 35% if not more. Then after that, it’s like we’ve gone back to ground zero. We didn’t make it in elective; we didn’t make it in appointive”. Anenih, former minister of women affairs, and the pioneer national woman leader of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, hinted that Nigerian women may have to take their destiny in their own hands by floating their own political party. She said “a lot of work is going on underground. Don’t be surprised come 2023 if you see an all-female political party”.
The 71-year-old former aide to ex-president, Olusegun Obasanjo also expressed the need for a law to make it mandatory to cede not less than 30 percent of appointive positions to women both at the Federal and state levels for the purpose of gender balance, stressing that “if we don’t make it a law, we can’t achieve much”. Paying glowing tribute to the late Nigeria’s First Lady, Maryam Babangida for “removing the scale from the eyes of Nigerian women”, Anenih, who was June 11 this year one of the 22 women inducted into the prestigious Nigerian Women Hall of Fame instituted by her (Babangida), believed that “women have not celebrated Mrs. Babangida the way we should celebrate her. We have not given her the due recognition that she deserves because she glamorized the office of the First Lady. We had wives of presidents and wives of heads of state before her but we didn’t know that it could be an office that could be used to impact the lives of women and the poor in the society until she came about”. She also expressed great admiration for incumbent First Lady, Aisha Mohammadu Buhari saying in respect of her style, “I thought that we should have made her our president… She’s a brave woman; she’s an activist First Lady”.