By Ayodele Abere
The crucial role of women should accord them equal gender representation in the political leadership and partisan politics in Nigeria.
This was suggested at a one day capacity building training jointly organised by the UN Women, the Canadian government and ARDA Development Communication Incorporated, for Media Professionals in Ekiti State, held in Ado-Ekiti, the State capital.
Speaking with journalists, the resource person who is also a Media and Development Communications Professional, an Associate with ARDA, Adebisi Adetunji, said the objective of the training is to equip media professionals with skills and informed knowledge about how they can increase women’s participation in politics and governance through their various mediums, traditional and digital media.
Madam A.A as she’s fondly called at the training charged the Media Practitioners to change the narrative when talking about women leadership saying whatever measure is being used to measure the male counterparts should also be used to measure the females in leadership position and in politics, focusing on their ability and capacity by not linking what they can do to their family name or who they are married to, or the number of children they have.
“We should promote and drive the conversation around what women can do and what they bring to the table. Said she.
According to the resource person, “one of the things that came out of the training is to increase men support for women participation in leadership position.
“We want to increase the conversation around training, taking it from the grassroots upward, equipping young women who are interested in leadership and governance.
“We want the media to talk about the mentorship opportunities. We want the media to talk about how violence can eventually be taken off our politicking as a nation. We want the media to increase and generate conversations around women’s leadership.
“We should have women and men taking on the race of leadership, working together to promote democracy, to promote government and leadership that actually meet needs of the people and we need the two genders on the table”. She emphasized.
To make this come to reality, a participant who spoke with our correspondent, Ayoola Oluwanifemi said women should believe in themselves first, saying anybody can do anything irrespective of the gender as long as such person put his/her mind to it.
Another participant from Ayoba Radio, Ado-Ekiti, Mulikat Salami, said she was able to learn a lot of things as she stated that the training was an eye-opener, even though she maintained that it’s very had for a man to give chance to a woman when it comes to politics, she opined that the various media represented at the training would now go back to create an awareness about allowing women to be well involved in politics.