WOMEN SHOULD NOT BE SEEN AS PUSHOVERS IN NATION BUILDING, SAYS OBASANJO

The meeting was facilitated by the Global Convener of WEPDN who is also the immediate past National President of the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), Iyalode Alaba Lawson

The former President declared  that there is no reason why the girl child should not have the same opportunities, alongside their male counterparts  in having access to education, stressing the important role, women play in the society, insisted that men are by no means superior to women, saying “women are not by any means pushovers.”

His words, “As men, we like to deceive ourselves as masters. When I was growing up, in my culture, there was this popular saying that men have nine bones while women have seven bones, I don’t know where we get that idea from. It is part of what we say to ourselves to try and boost up our egos”

 “Women form more than 50 percent of Nigeria’s population and therefore the role of women must be understood must be celebrated. There are three areas where I believe all of us in this country have to work on”,Obasanjo said

“One, is female child education. We are still lagging behind and there is no reason, culturally or religiously and even socially why the girl child should not have the same opportunities, the same access to education as the male child.”

“Second one is child marriage, when you have to marry off the girl child at the age of 13, 14 of course, we know that her education is short circuited and when her education is short circuited it affects her for the rest of her live.”

“And the third is making sure we get enough women in political-elective offices and political appointments, not only political, but also in the private sector. Women are not by any means pushovers. We know that in what they call the informal sector, when you remove women from this informal sector then your formal sector is non-existing.”

“These are the issues I think we all have to work on and I’m particularly happy that we have young women like you and those of you who are enterprising here with me. You can always count on my support,” Obasanjo said.

Penpushing further reports that, the former President also identified child marriage, adequate women participation in politics and appointments of women into public offices as other areas needed urgent attention.

The Country Representative of UN Women, Ms. Comfort Lamptey in her remarks said, “the issues of early child marriage is a big one here in Nigeria, we know that more girls are out of school, and when girls are out of school their education is limited and their opportunities are also limited and that also sets back the development of the country”.

Penpushing also reports that,  country Director of United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) , Jean Bakale  acknowledged the role of Obasanjo in nation building, stating that,’for Nigerians and also for all Africans, and our continent’

‘So we are very pleased to come to report for our former President, His Excellency, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, he’s a former Head of State in Nigeria, who changed the economic narrative of Nigeria, to report to him on how UNIDO is engaged to support economic investigation of the country, and  back to His Excellency, President Buhari, through economic recovery and prosper.

‘I will like  to really extend gratitude to Nigeria for its long standing partnership with UNIDO and in particular for the all commitment of  Nigeria government, to support UNIDO to help the government at Federal level also to State level to safer the economy.  This is very important and of course.