‘Nigeria not ready for female president’ ‘Nigeria not ready for female president’

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.