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Tunde Omolehin, Sokoto
Mr. Babatunde Alabi is the Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist with International Republican Institute, Abuja. A non-profit and nonpartisan organisation committed to advancing freedom and democracy by helping political parties to become more issue-based and responsive. It recently organised a summit in Sokoto toward these objectives. He spoke on the sidelines of the summit.
Your organisation, IRI, is known for advocating the participation of women in politics in Nigeria. How do you assess the impact of the advocacy so far?
We have recorded some successes. We also have to understand both political and cultural contexts of the people involved. Even before the present programme, we have had many in the past. In 2015 in Sokoto State for instance, when the present governor was elected, we paid an advocacy visit to him. We advocated on behalf of women that let number of positions be given to women. Thereafter, the governor promised to look into it that women are given the chance to serve in the government. At the end, we saw him appointed three women as commissioners. There also a couple of women that were appointed as board members and so on. So, we have recorded some successes. But we felt that it still not enough. We need to do more. We need to get women into government for decision making purpose.
So far, the response has been very fantastic. It has been good all the way. We have a political party’s resource center in Sokoto State where women come and visit us from time to time. In fact, the women themselves were the ones who suggested that we should have this kind of programme. They themselves have become responsive in that regard. So, there responses have been good. I think they are also hungry for inclusion and if the tempo is maintained, we are going to see a huge change in women participation in today’s government.
This time, we are organising summit for women in Sokoto State to review the level of their participation in the 2019 general elections. To identify challenges they might have faced in the course of their participation and the need to chart a way forward, as per how they can get into decision making process in the state. Essentially, we expected that at the end of the meeting, women would be able to come out with charter of demand or women agenda. That will be presented to the elected officials in the state, as to the need to have more inclusive governance and decision making in political processes.
Why did you think the participation of women in politics is necessary at this time?
Yes, their participation in politics are necessary at this time because most of the service delivery gaps we see today and most of the challenges our society are facing today have either direct or indirect bearings on women. So most time, women are the ones bearing the brunt of poor service delivery. They bear the brunt of poor governance and the brunt of poor decision making. We believed that if women are part and parcel of this decision making process, they will able to champion their own cause .And of course, they will be able to ensure that services are delivered and the dividends of democracy felt among the citizens which women constituted a larger percentage. So, we believe it is important for women to have a voice in government. It is important for women to also have a voice in decision making because at the end of the day, it trickled down and the larger society are there to benefit from inclusive governance.
In the past, what are the IRI’s contributions toward directing women to achieve this goal you mentioned?
Presently, IRI is running a project that we call Responsive Political Party Programme, whereby, we work with political parties to make them better responsive to the citizens. To make them be able to represent the yearnings of the citizens. And part of the objectives of this project is also to ensure that marginalised groups such as women, youth, people living with disability and even the internal displaced persons are well inputted in governance. We have been having series of programmes with political parties to ensure that they see reasons where women, youths and other marginalised groups are well inputted in their processes. Also, overtime, we have been building the capacity of women to be able to advocate for inclusive governance. What we are see today is just one of those things we have done in the past and this is coming because we have a new government in place. Before they start making their appointments, we want them to have women and other marginalised groups in their minds. We have been having these kinds of engagements at different levels. We have some groups of women whom we have been building their capacities. But this is an opportunity to bring different groups we have been building their capacities together as to have a common approach for demanding for inclusive governance. So, this is just one of the many events we have had with women. Our focus is to build their advocacy capacity because we know they cannot get anything by force but we can only advocate getting inclusive governance. So, we have been building basically the capacity of women and this event is just one of the many events.
What are the future plans of IRI, especially for women and other targeted groups?
Yea, the plan for Sokoto women is to see them occupying more positions both in elective and appointments. Unfortunately, we missed the opportunity to have them in elective positions in the just concluded general elections, but hope is not lost. We believe that by the time we get them in appointive positions and we continue to engage them by building their capacities, they will get there. Because, one thing is to get people in positions, another thing is for them to be able to perform. We want them to be able to perform, probably in the next four years when another election circle will be here, they will be able to speak on behalf of the rest women. They can on their own go to contest for elective positions based on the capacity they have gained during their performance. We hope that this engagement will continue to get them in positions and to be able to perform, so that, their performance can speak for them and give them the edge over their opponent in the next electoral circle
