150 WOMEN GROUPS PROTEST IN FAVOUR OF IMPLEMENTATION OF 35% REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN OGUN CABINET

The women in their hundreds also took their protest to the State House of Assembly Complex at Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta, to further intimated the lawmakers on their demands, calling on them to liase with Governor in ensuring that women are not left out in government

Penpushing further reports that, Dr Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi  speaking at the Governor’s office told the Deputy Governor, Alhaja  Noimot Salako-Oyedele who attended to them, that, ’we are here to make some request, we have sent formal letters across ahead of time, we have done what we call an open letter which we have circulated in the media’.

‘We know that we are in the season where Governors from different State sending their nomination to the State Assemblies across the country. As at today by record, there were just seven women among the 43 Ministerial nominees the President sent to the National Assembly’.

‘We are very worried and we are concerned because of the trend that we can see around us. Beyond Lagos that sent a 32 per cent to the Assembly, the low representation of women I occurring in other places’.

‘We don’t want to react rather to be proactive to make our request clear and by empirical evidence of this State that we know. About eight years ago, there are about 42 per cent women representation in the State governance and it was also sustained in 2015. We believe that this present government would consider that to have the people’s representation in this coming cabinet’.

‘We are here with the youth, people with disability and we are more than 160 organization that endorse the protest of today. This is a warning request and that is why we are demanding for a representation of women and we are demanding for inclusive of women in Abiodun’s cabinet’.

‘We are coalition leaders, we can mobilize hundred, thousands, but, we feel that we should come here today to let you know that if the nomination that goes to the State House of Assembly and it is not representative that women in Ogun will not agree with it’.

‘The minimum is 35 per cent and it can be as high as 50 per cent, we know that the Governor of the State is gender sensitive and that is why we are here today to make our request known before the list is sent to the assembly’.

The Chairperson of, Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) in her speech during the protest to House of Assembly said, ’this is a peaceful protest and we did not come with anything, we only come with banners and posters just to express our mind on what we are seeing around the country’.

‘We don’t want to be taking by surprise and that is why we decided to come to meet the House because we know that for any government they have to come to the House before they can have anybody that. We don’t want to come after the Governor has submitted his list and that is when they would told us that it is too late’.

‘In Ogun State, we have more than enough capable, qualified, technocrats women that can have impact in the State. This is a warning protest because we would not let the House to go ahead to take any nomination that is not inclusive, we are going to come in large numbers. We are appealing to you to ask the right question when they bring the list and ensure that the list is inclusive because if the list is not inclusive, we are coming back in large numbers and we will not agree.

Penpushing  also reports that,the Deputy Governor, Noimot Salako-Oyedele while responding to the protesters said, ’Our Governor is very gender sensitive, but, our Government is not concern about your gender, but, your ability and the fact is that when it comes to performance, women do better than men’.

‘I am confident that women will get a very good seat in this government and the truth is that there is more to just numerical representation. We don’t even want token nuisance, what we want is having women in proactive representation where they will be there and make difference on behalf of us. I can assure you that the Governor is very committed to having women and not just token women, but, women in impactive positions’.

‘The policies of Prince Dapo Abiodun are policies that are going to help women. We must bear in mind not only to talk about representation, but, also to have policies that is going to impact in women’ lives positively’.