A renowned female musician, Onyeka Onwenu, has urged the Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan to consider the choice of a woman as the country’s next vice president.
Speaking at the Nigeria Youth Summit, organised by the World Igbo Youth Assembly at the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Lagos at the weekend, she said the mistake of relegating women to the background, which the older generation made should not be repeated.
“Nigerian women are strong, brilliant, committed. Nigeria will get nowhere if we keep the woman down or put them somewhere. It is about time that we get women into the political process. Give us a chance. We are talking about having a vice president, so bring a woman to be the vice president. When there is ministerial appointment, make it at least 30 per cent women”.
She also said it was unfortunate that people tend to focus on the misdeeds of a few women to say the rest are incapable of leading the country.
“If Nigerians are claiming that 30 per cent of women have disappointed, then 90 per cent of men have disappointed,” she said.
“So, what do we do with the men? Get rid of all of them? I think that is even a question that shouldn’t come up. Majority of the women we have in government today and even in the past has given a good account of themselves”.
She, however, said Nigeria cannot succeed without women’s participation in national politics.
A former vice president of Nigeria, Alex Ekwueme, said despite the contribution of Nigerian heroes to the development of the country, the nation is still struggling to establish a truly federal structure that it claims to be.
He joined other speakers to say since past leaders were products of opportunities, the youth should be given fresh opportunities to contribute their own quota to the development of the country.
Yar’ Adua’s lesson
Also at the event, a former presidential aspirant and leader of the Mega Party, Pat Utomi said the death of the former president, Umar Yar’Adua was a lesson to others in positions of leadership.
“He could have made a great difference in this life to Nigeria and the people close to him. However the important thing is the lesson we draw from his life and the challenges of his death,” Mr. Utomi said. “One of the lessons learnt is about health care. His life put to us how poor the health care system is in our country and how much we need to do something about it. This is the basic need of our people and is fundamental to progress. We must look at how our health care system works, how our educational system works and if we get them right, we will get most other things right.
He cited the example of how an American president, Abraham Lincoln set up a presidential team called ‘a team of equal’ to work with him and advised that “as President Jonathan goes forward, he must be a man of courage and had to work with the right kind of people. Nigerian people are notorious for working with people who are inferior to them because they are afraid”.
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