#THENIGERIAWEWANT- A National Women’s Dialogue Hold’s November 27 – 29 in Abuja Writes Lady Nkiru Celine Okoro

It is no longer news that the Nigeria we have today is not the dream country for majority of Nigerian women who according to the last national recorded census in 2006 comprise 46.9% of the country’s population yet occupy a paltry 3.4% in the 2019 Federal House of Representative and 6% in the current senate. From east to west, north to south there is a consensus that this Nigeria is not working for Nigerian women. This is not the Nigeria of our dream.

What is however news is that Nigerian women are no longer ready to either sit on defense or bear this huge national burden individually as has been the case for several decades now!

For several months, women have been dialoguing, engaging, consulting and rubbing minds for lasting solutions to the myriad of problems facing Nigerian women.

To this end, they have resolved to hold a national dialogue akin to a women’s movement tagged “WOMANIFESTO 2019” from Wednesday November 27 to Friday November 29 2019 at Women Development Center Abuja.

“WOMANIFESTO 2019” is a coherently articulated set of demands that will galvanise into a push for Action to actualize Nigerian Women Charter of Demands on all Institutions of government, the Private sector and society at large.

Participants will be drawn from women groups, market women, collectives, civil societies, faith based and community based associations, entrepreneurs, professionals, social media influencers and women within the labour work force.

According to the conference report, made available to journalists on Friday November 15, 2019 in Abuja by its Communications Chair, Mrs. Mary Ikoku, the situation of women in Nigeria based on the Social Institution and Gender Index (SIGI) 2019 dataset that addressed the de jure and de facto situations of discriminatory social institutions, using qualitative and quantitative data on laws, attitudes and practices across 180 countries globally ranked Nigeria at 46% .

Similarly, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) 2019 human development index value and ranking for Nigeria are 0.532 and 157 out of 189 countries. Nigeria is among the 10 percent of countries worldwide that exhibits the highest levels of gender discrimination with an assessment of “high” or “very high” in all of the evaluated categories based on four social institutions namely discriminatory family code, restricted physical integrity, restricted resources and assets and restricted civil liberties.

The report identified barriers to these abysmal situations, but singled out “lack of political will on the part of successive governments since 1999” as the main culprit.

Speaking on the Confab, Dr. Abiola  Akiyode  Afolabi, The Executive Director,   Women Advocactes Research & Documentation Center  (WARDC)  and Convener stated: “2019 Womanifesto seeks to enhance the voice, participation and protection of Nigerian Women, the dialogue will consolidate our collective struggle to end gender based violence, poverty, insecurity, abuse of women’s sexual and reproductive rights and our rights to participate in our country. We can no longer be second class citizens in our land. We must move collectively to end the continued oppression of our bodily integrity.”

Some important themes in the conference will include but not limited to

Violence against women and girls, Women Peace and Security, Women and Economic Empowerment, Women’s Political Participation Women, Sexual and Reproductive Rights.

Others are agriculture, education or other areas that women groups and association deem critical.

Registration is ongoing and available on this link “ https://www.womanifesto.ng/registration.html”.

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