By Ahmed Idris
President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday jokingly told Vice President Yemi Osinbajo tha5 his position is being threatened by the constant agitations by women to occupy the post.
The President this while reacting to a request by Nigerian Female Parliamentarians who asked for the position of Vice President of Nigeria in subsequent elections in the country.
The Nigerian Female Parliamentarians paid the President a courtesy call at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
“It is a pity the Vice-President is not here. But I believed the Secretary to the Government of the Federation will tell him that his position is threatened,’’ he said.
He commended women for their efforts in ensuring political stability in the country and for the support given to him during the 2015 presidential elections.
Chairperson of Nigerian Female Parliamentarians, Mrs Elizabeth Ativie , who spoke on behalf the delegation, said Nigerian women were being marginalised by their male counterparts in politics.
“Since 1999 we only have one principal officer each in the Senate and the House of Representatives. And in the State Houses of Assembly we have only just five per cent, women are five per cent of the total population of elected members of the States House of Assembly and we feel that this is not good enough for all the efforts we women had put in in the development of this country particularly in politics.
“We feel the trend now needs to be reversed and we feel you are the only one who can do it now. The implementation strategy is simply. Any statement you make today is a policy statement and is a law.
“Now your Excellency is twinning. Many African countries have imbibed that culture of twinning and is working – in Rwanda, in South Africa is working and we believe it will work in Nigeria. Where a man is a president we expect that the vice-president should be a woman; where a man is speaker, we expect that the deputy speaker should be a woman and vice versa,’’ she said.
She stressed the need for the present administration to invest more in women’s participation in politics by creating an enabling environment for women to thrive and tackle perceived systematic and cultural hindrances to women’s inclusion.
She commended the President for the recent approval given to the Inspector-General of Police to employ youths into the Nigeria Police Force and expressed the hope that at least 35 per cent of the those to be recruited would be female police.
