2023: Female Presidential Aspirant Declares: What cannot be won by legislation and selection can be won by ‘woman-slide election’ —Adesanya-Davies

“‘MAKE THE FEMALE VOTE COUNT’ in 2023” —Adesanya-Davies

“‘NASS-No: Election ‘VOTE-WOMEN-2023’ Yes’ is a title published by Tony Marinho in The Nation on March 9, 2022 to project: When legislation says ‘NO’,
Election 2023 should say ‘YES’!
We must show NASS
That the voters know Best!!!”

Of course yes certainly,
I do agree says Adesanya-Davies that, “Women must refuse to be legislated against. Their combined vote in 2023 can install most of the women seeking office even if it requires voting across party lines. Favour the party with women candidates. Even women failed to support women before. There was once a woman presidential candidate. At the primaries she had one vote. It is time to redress the wrongs.

Research findings shows in this article last week entitled ‘Evans; 25% female politicians inadequate in 2022’ assumed that, the new bill for 111 Special seats for Nigerian women in National Assembly, (NASS) was a certainty.

Sadly, hopes of those millions of females, 17yrs old+,[18 by 2023] and gender-equality males were dashed by NASS. Indeed, NASS did some good legislative work devolving travel to states and empowering LGAs but it also legislated against women. It is the NASS male population which fears losing out and is fighting back, even though no NASS member would have lost his seat.

The bills seek a minimum of 35% for executive members for each party executive to be women, 10 women ministers per executive council and 111 extra seats in NASS. They are not mutually exclusive but stepping-stones to equality. The morality around funding of the 111 extra seats is a huge moral dilemma with poverty at 75%. This new formula of ‘supernumerary but equal’ actually exposes NASS to accusations of selfishness. The men won but no congratulations. They should go home shamefaced to their families for losing a monumental opportunity.

The women are 49-51% of the population. They must make their political presence felt. The world around realises how valuable good women are in governance. Nigeria is sadly wrong stepping! If the NASS had approved the 35% female number, we would be praising its members for achieving the results at zero monetary cost.

Again, similarly speaking on the inclusion of women in the 2023 elections for the women community in PDP and Nigeria at large, Prof. Funmilayo Adesanya-Davies adds that,

“If the purchase of Expression of Interest form (EoI) has now increased from N1000 to N5000 in PDP, for presidency for an instance, unlike in 2019, that means, women are again disenfranchised, structurally and technically edged out. Or is it all a game of the capitalist once again? She asks?”

However, we as women can support this struggle. Every woman, qualified morally, seeking election in 2023 should be able to get elected. The task is to strategize to “‘MAKE THE FEMALE VOTE COUNT’ in 2023.”

It’s time to mobile and tell every woman to tell fifty women per day to get their PVC and vote for their women folk.

First: ‘Get All Women To Vote’ with campaigns by targeting those who will be 18 by 2023 with ‘Girl GO Vote’ songs and T shirts etc. included in Nollywood scripts, Music etc. by entertainment stars aimed at getting the PVC.

Second: ‘Get Most Women to Vote for Women’ even across party. Make any party which does not field some women uncomfortable by withdrawing female support and directing support towards parties which field women. Encourage women in one party to vote for a woman in another party to fight the greater battle for a greater Nigerian female political footprint.

Feeble excuses of a lack of lobbying ability is pathetic mistrusts and bad excuse for perpetuating a wrong which needs to stop. Someone even said the politicians had to vote according to the dictates of their constituencies as if they ever actually consulted back home.

They merely throw some palliative party sharing food bags, keke, generators, grinders, motorcycles and sewing machines in huge numbers. Nigeria has the only legislature worldwide so well-self-paid that its members can privately do such things costing multiples of millions and still have enough to live like kings and queens.

Meanwhile the tax man chases us around. As if Obama, Trump, Johnson or Merkel even had access to such huge salaries for such ‘Political Palliative Parties’! There politicians’ work is ‘LEGISLATIVE NOT PALLIATIVE’; making laws easing the plight of the people not just providing for party hangers-on. It’s time to cut Nigerian politicians’ ‘Salaries and Perks’ by 75% because they are ‘SAPping’ Nigeria dry.

So when will we follow most of the world and many African countries which allow womanhood to flourish politically and not just as a decoration? They did not change the constitution or increase the cost of governance to elevate women to political authority.

Women: What cannot be won by legislation and selection can be won by a ‘woman-slide election’.

‘WOMEN: WHAT CANNOT BE LEGISLATED CAN BE WON AND WE MUST BE ELECTED!”

Prof. Funmilayo Adesanya-Davies is a frontline presidential aspirant, the only Amazon in the 2023 Presidential race on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and an academic and technocrat in Nigeria.