By Josephine Agbonkhese

Strengthening women’s alliances and collective pressure strategies are key to ensuring progress in their participation in leadership, politics and governance, Chairman, LASACO Assurance Plc, Mrs Aderinola Disu, and Founding Director, Women Advocates Research & Documentation Centre, WARDC, Dr Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, have said.

The duo made the conclusion at a forum tagged “The Role of Professional Women in Supporting Women’s Participation in Leadership, Politics and Governance” organised by WARDC in collaboration with the Cosmopolitan Women’s Club in Lagos, which saw leading women from the public and private sectors proffer practical solutions to the setbacks suffered by women in politics in recent years.

Some of the women who spoke were the former First Lady, Ekiti State, Erelu Bisi Fayemi; Chairman, Afriland Properties cum former First Lady of Ekiti State, Erelu Angela Adebayo; Dr Doyin Abiola; first female Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Lagos, Prof.Chioma Agomo; former Member, House of Representative, Hon Rafeequat Onabamiro; Yemisi Ransome-Kuti; Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Lagos State University, Prof.Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello; Prof.Remi Sonaiya, former Presidential candidate and ace Nollywood actress Mrs Joke Jacobs. While Onabamiro said legislative actions such as affirmative actions were required to raise the number of women in politics, Agomo said such legislations would only be deadwoods if both the boy and girl child were not reoriented in the home front, since “people” will still be needed to enforce such legislations.  Fayemi, in her submission, however recommended five long-term strategies which she believed would permanently address the problem.

“First, we must have an understanding of patriarchy and how it works; how men control institutions in the society. From there, we can work to dismantle the system. Second, we need to fix our social capital as women. This is because, the reason why it is easy for men to control all these institutions is because they know how to build social capital from when they are very young. The daughter is sent to the kitchen to cook while the boy child is on the field playing football with 21 other boys and at same time making friends!

“Third, many of us (women) do not have political capital. We should begin to join organisations, unions, old girls’ association, do philanthropy, etc. Fourth, there’s also an urgent need to strengthen the women’s wing of political parties so they have a better voice. Lastly, we should begin to bridge generational gaps between ourselves and younger women so as to promote solidarity amongst women folk.”