Abuja, Nigeria – Peter Gregory Obi, the candidate for the Labour Party (LP), has said that for any country to move forward, women must be engaged in governance and decision-making as antecedents have shown that women can manage finances better.
Speaking, yesterday, at the Voice of Women (VOW) 2022 conference and awards, held in Abuja, Obi, described how shameful and terrible the situation of things in the country currently is. He said the country is collapsing and women cannot be ignored in the rescue mission.
“If anyone says to you that they want to rule this country, let them show you their past record on women’s representation and competency. My tenure as governor had very strong women representation because I understand the value women bring to the table and the state was better for it. I attribute my success as governor to the capable women I surrounded myself with.
“As Anambra governor, I had a female deputy. My chief of staff was a woman. My commissioners for planning, local government affairs, education and finance were women. Also, the state Accountant-General in my tenure was a woman.”
He went on to add that for the country to move forward, women must be engaged in governance and decision-making as antecedents have shown that women can manage finances better.
“With the way the country is going, a bag of rice is heading to N60,000 – two months minimum wage, this is terrible,” he said.
Obi noted that the country is riddled with leadership and systemic failure but this can be corrected next year by “giving competent women and youths the chance to right the wrongs. Looking at other countries, especially Bangladesh, elected women into key areas of their economy and it has started showing a massive difference.
“Today, they are at less than six per cent unemployment while Nigeria is in double digits and rising every day. Of the 10 million involved in the textile business over there, 60 per cent are women and the rural women are doing wonderfully in agriculture.”
He added that he would ensure that women, who have been exempted from the helm of affairs so far, would be strategically positioned in his cabinet.
The former governor of Anambra said that trust would be a major factor in the upcoming election, and that voters would have to decide which candidate they could put their faith in to keep their campaign promises if they were elected.
He suggests that voters examine each candidate’s track record to determine who has a history of keeping their word in similar situations. And, as Obi pointed out, it’s not enough for a politician to say he’ll fight corruption if there were a string of embezzlements in the exact public post the candidate once held.
“What we are selling today is trust in one of us (the candidates), and I’ve promised to be loyal. But given that you can research our backgrounds and see for yourself that this is true, who can you really put your faith in? Who in their right mind would do what he’s suggesting? One cannot simply arrive and declare, “I will fight corruption,” especially if everything was stolen from his previous office. Give him a chance to explain how he escaped,” Obi said.
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