By Ahmed Idris
President Muhammadu Buhari said on Thursday that present administration would continue to be fair and just to women in terms of appointments, provision of soft loans for agricultural activities and realization of the 35 per cent affirmative action.
The President said this at a meeting with the leaders of the National Council for Women Societies (NCWS) at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
He said government would look into possible appointment of women ministers to replace those that left the cabinet recently.
“I have appreciated the settled and timely threat you have made. I said timely because you waited until campaigns are about to start. You mobilised yourselves to come and threaten. I hope you have been very fair to me; I will leave you to the public to judge. You said I haven’t replaced the casualties from my council about the ladies.
“I’m sure you are following up – one applied to leave because I think she wants to be the governor of the state; one failed to meet the government requirement of declaring NYSC certificate and I replaced them with other ladies – Finance and Women Affairs.
“So, I don’t know where I went wrong there? This deficit in women appointments I will look at it and the road is clear; election is coming perhaps I will get a few more advisers, ministers from the women. I thank you most sincerely for coming to see, but, I wonder how you waited until after three and half years that you will come,’’ he said.
On the rate of sexual violence and abuse in the society, particularly at the Internally Displaced Persons’ camps (IDPs), the President said he had already directed the security agencies to immediately address the problem by bringing to book all those implicated in the dastardly acts.
“I have taken note of the observation you made on the abuse of women in the IDPs camps. I’m encouraging the police to be much more efficient and I think something is being done about it,” he said.
The President also pledged to ensure that the women farmers benefit from the federal government’s agricultural loans and other beneficial programmes to boost food production in the country, and called on women to form themselves into cooperative societies to enable them benefit from such loans.
In her remarks, President of the NCWS, Mrs Gloria Laraba, commended the President for implementing laudable programmes aimed at uplifting the quality of life of the citizens.
She said the Trader Moni programme is a worthwhile intervention to keep the spirit of entrepreneurship alive in local communities and help petty traders grow their micro businesses.
“We are pleased that these initiatives are beneficial to many of our women one way or another. This is because we are in the front-end of the concerned activities and will be impacted the most,” she said.
She called on the President to encourage the Nigeria police to strengthen its investigation and prosecution of sexual violence through the creation of a new department to arrest the menace across the country.
She also appealed to the President to appoint more women as members of the federal executive council to replace those that left the cabinet recently
