#TrackNigeria Young female politicians under the auspices of Women In Politics (WIP), on Tuesday began what they called strategic meeting in Kaduna ahead of 2023 elections.
WIP is being championed by Legal Awareness for Nigerian Women with support from National Democratic Institute and UkAid.
Participants at the meeting were drawn from different political parties and wards in Kaduna State.
The Project Officer, Hannatu Ahuwan said the objective of the meeting was to build essential leadership skills for young women politicians in the state.
Ahuwan said, “This is a follow up to the meeting we had in June, where seasoned female politicians were brought together.
“Those who have contested before are now coming together to share their experiences with these young ones.
“Some of the young women we have here have shown interest in politics and we are here to expose them to the nitty-gritty of politics.
“We have the opportunity of bringing seasoned female politicians to mentor the young ones, so we can have more women in our political space, because what we have now in terms of women occupying elective offices is not encouraging.
“The essence is to increase women participation in politics as you may have noticed, we have more of old women but we need these young women to learn the rope and take over from them.
“We want to review our strategy and understand the bottlenecks, the success, how and what we can do better.
“We are going to look at leadership and gender socialisation and then see what prospect we have ahead of the 2023 election.
“In the entire Northwest states, we have only one female lawmaker and that is poor representation of women.
“So it is important that we start this early in order to cover more ground before the next elections.”
A young female politician, Sarah Maiyaki said her meeting with seasoned female politicians has been positive, with a lot of good outcomes.
She said, “We have those that have been in the House of Representatives, State Assembly, local government chairmen giving us first hand leadership skills as young female politicians especially as we look forward to another round of elections in Nigeria.
“We are looking at having a female as governor in Kaduna State come 2023.
“If we can have a lady as deputy, I don’t think there is anything wrong in her becoming the governor because there is a saying that what a man can do, a woman can do better.
“That is our prayer and we know with what the present administration is doing in women empowerment in Kaduna State, anything is possible.
“What I have learnt and achieved is that, there is hope in women occupying big public offices in the land and we are not going to give up in our quest to achieve that.” (NAN)
