Female lawmakers in the
country have pleaded with President Muhammadu Buhari to concede the slot
of the Vice President to them in subsequent elections in the country.
The
female lawmakers made the statement on Friday when they paid a courtesy
call on President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Speaking on behalf of the delegation, which comprised elected lawmakers
from the nation’s 36 states, the leader of the delegation, Hon. Mrs.
Elizabeth Ativie said Nigerian Women were being marginalised by their
male counterparts.
She said the country only had one
principal officer in each of the two chambers of the National Assembly
since the return to democracy in 1999. She also told Mr Buhari that as
the president, anything he said at the gathering “will become policy and
subsequently law.” To this end, she said “whenever the president is a
man, the Vice President should be a woman.”
Mrs. Ativie also
said for every three senatorial seats in the states, one should be a
woman. She also said “where there are nine House of Reps members, the
men should take six and leave three for women.”
Responding,
President Buhari jokingly said “it is a pity that the Vice President is
not here, but I am sure the Secretary to the Government of the
Federation will brief him that his position is threatened.”
Mr
Buhari however appreciated the support given to him by women generally
in the four times he ran for president. He recalled reports he received
during elections in which women in Labour queued to vote for him. He
asked the delegation to take a message to their colleagues to extend the
same support since he has declared to seek for second term.
On
their request, the president simply told the gathering that he is not
“as powerful as you think. He said such requests could only be made by a
military head of state, but, he has today dropped the uniform for
“agbada”.
From Vanguard