Women deserve equal access to political leadership – Oyefusi

The Lagos East Senatorial Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Princess Abiodun Oyefusi, on Friday said women deserved equal access to political leadership positions as men.
She told the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos that leadership should be about capacity and not gender.
The senatorial candidate regretted what she called the “unfair domination of the political space’’ by men in spite of women having the number and capacity.
Oyefusi said the situation had denied women the opportunity to properly contribute their quota to nation-building.
She said: “There should be no defensible reason why women should not be fairly represented in political leadership. We have the capacity as well as the number.
“In 2014, we were about 49 per cent of the population and this is 2019. We should be about 50 per cent going by the ratio of increase.
“Despite our large number, we are not yet visible in the political space. We have never had proportionate representation in politics.
“We have never had a female president or female governor. Even we have never had a woman as chairman of any of the political parties across the states.
“Therefore, women need to be properly represented in all political positions for the sake of equality and justice. We have a lot to give Nigerians.’’
Oyefusi said that people should not be voted for because of gender but because of the capacity to deliver.
She said that women had proven beyond doubt that they had a lot to give, stressing that women were achieving great things all over the world.
She said: “So there is no justification for having just seven women out of the 107 people in the Senate. The number is just too low.
“Women deserve more than this. We want equality or at least 35 per cent affirmative action.”
The PDP candidate, who is a daughter of late Ayangburen of Ikorodu, Oba Salaudeen Oyefusi, said she was in the senatorial race to promote laws that would impact on the lives of Nigerians.
Oyefusi said that she also wanted to be in the Senate to empower the people of the Lagos East Senatorial District.
She said the people of Ikorodu, Epe and others deserved a better representation at the Senate, saying her mission was to attract government’s attention to the development issues in the constituency.