Group urges grassroots women to participate in politics

From Femi Oyelola, Kaduna

A group under the auspices of Women in Need Foundation (WINEED) has called on grassroots women in Nigeria to participate in politics in order to contributes their quota to the development of the country. The Executive Director of the group Barrister Abiola Kamardeen disclosed this during a workshop for grassroots women in Kaduna.
According to Barrister Kamardeen the low turnout of women seeking elective office in kaduna state is worrisome. She, however, said this l will soon be a thing of the past as many women are beginning to realize the importance of actively involving themselves in politics.
“What we are doing is to mobilize the women especially at the grass root for effective political participation in elections
“ We want to educate women on electoral process and make them participate fully. This is beginning to yield positive results. Issues bordering on women are brought to fore. Like that of political parties’ conduct of primaries which does not allow for actual representation of women candidates.
“This attributes to why qualified women with political ambition shy away from politics as such only few women are manning political offices. Through organizing of workshops, lectures they are able to say their minds.
“These are women that have capacities. We are trying to build on it. Some of them are already into political system. Those who are not, we are trying to mobilize them to do so.
“The system is not thoroughly motivating them so we decided that we should go about sensitizing them to do so. We were in the LGs earlier on where we sourced for these women.
“We have moved from Kaduna North local government area ( LGA) to Kaduna south LG. Presently we are into educating women from Chukun, Makarfi _and Sabo Gari local Government Areas.”
She added that there is nothing stopping a woman from seeking leadership position and taking part in decision

from peoples daily