Ciroma decries lack of level playing field for women politicians
Minister of women affairs Maryam Ciroma says lack of level playing field is the major impediment to women's participation in partisan politics.
Briefing the press in Abuja, Ciroma said most political parties would not provide the same opportunity to their women folks.
She noted that even though the ministry wrote to the parties to allocate certain positions to women, ``up till now nothing has been heard from them''.
She said the six zonal offices set up to monitor the performance of women in the last primaries had not reported to the ministry on how women performed.
``That notwithstanding, in the North West zone, it was reported that 35 women contested in the last primaries, all of them scaled through,'' she said.
Ciroma said another major challenge for women participation in politics was their refusal to join politics.
``It becomes a huge challenge for the few of them that have come to compete on the same level with their male counterparts,'' she said.
The ministry, she said, had also faced the challenge in states that do not have women affairs ministry, resulting in their inability to pursue women issues.
On the slow passage of the Child Rights Act by many states, she said this was a major challenge to the ministry in spite of the advocacy to sensitise them.
``Both women and men have a collective stake in this country. In fact, many women in top positions got there by merit, both in the private and public sector,'' she said.
In his contribution, the minister of information and communications, Mr Frank Nweke Jnr, said the role of women in on-going political process was a proof that the ministry had succeeded.
``Fired by the vision of President Olusegun Obasanjo in giving women their rightful place in all spheres of national life, the ministry of women affairs had continued to provide leadership to all sectors,'' he said.
Nweke was represented by Mr Henry Angulu, a director in the ministry.
He said the result had been gratifying as a number of women hold some ministerial positions in health, finance, foreign affairs and education.