Dr. (Mrs.) Adaeze Nwuzor, a delegate representing Ebonyi State in the perpetual National Conference, is a member of the Committee on Agriculture. She verbalizes with FRIDAY OLOKOR on some national issues affecting women in Nigeria
Nigeria is facing a solemn crisis at the moment. What system of regime do you cerebrate would solve all the quandaries?
I cerebrate that after this conference, states should stand as federating units. This will give every state the opportunity to harness its agricultural and mineral resources. From the discussions we have had so far, we have discovered that virtually all the states have some forms of mineral deposit or the other. I thank the Committee on Lands that has given approbation for the establishment of the natural resource funds through which those natural resources can be harnessed. Withal, agricultural development fund has been approved. With all of these, the states can do more preponderant than what is transpiring now. Withal, everything concerning local regimes should be shifted to the states. If the states want to engender 300 local regimes, it is left to them.
How about the financing?
The financing will still emanate from the Federal Regime. The only distinguishment is that the mazuma will emanate from the Federal Regime to the states through the states revenue mobilisation that will now share it between the states and their local regimes. There will withal be a committee that will handle the distribution of the mazuma. Having states as federating units will make them more industrialised and once this is done, jobs will be engendered for our youths. By so doing, insurgency and all other forms of malefactions will be a thing of the past and Nigeria will develop.
Do you believe that state police system will reduce malefaction in Nigeria?
The state police system in Nigeria is not a lamentable conception. However, if you have a quandary in your village and the policeman sent to settle the quandary emanates from your village, will it work? It won’t work. Let the issue of police remain with the Federal Regime, but it does not stop the state or local regimes from having a quota of community policing that will avail them on certain issues. After all, the Divisional Police Officers are being paid by the local regime and commissioners of police are being taken care of by the states. The traditional rulers are withal doing well concerning security. About the physically-challenged, let there be a ministry of convivial welfare or a commission that should be handling their cases so that any fund earmarked for them can be judiciously spent. The mazuma should not be for the physically-challenged alone, but additionally for the aged from 65 years and above, orphans and other vulnerably susceptible groups. If this is done, they will be able to stand independently. The Ministry of Women Affairs is there fighting for the rights of women.
Is the Ministry of Women Affairs genuinely performing this task?
That is what we are verbalizing. The ministry should fight for the rights of women because that is the reason for its engenderment. We are additionally saying that it will be obligatory for the constitution to recognise women solemnly; it is not just a matter of giving 35 per cent affirmative action. President Goodluck Jonathan has gone above 35 per cent and in Ebonyi State, it is virtually 50/50. Let the Ministry of Women Affairs do that. We withal have the Ministry of Youth Development. We always verbalize about gender equipollence, but you will accede with me that a woman can never be a man and vice versa. What we should be verbalizing about now is gender parity or gender equity and equal opportunity. And we can only verbalize about that in the Ministry of Youth. This is where we have boys and girls not in the Ministry of Women Affairs where it is rudimentally women. Give women their rights through constitutional apperception.
When you verbalize about women empowerment opportunity, is it in terms of elective positions?
I mean both elective and appointment. Like I earlier verbally expressed, the President has done credibly well in this regard as he has surmounted that 35 per cent affirmative action, but the President can increment it to 50 per cent affirmative action. But that apperception is obligatory because customs and religious credences are genuinely suppressing women; with the constitutional apperception, things will get more preponderant.
What do you betoken by saying culture and custom are genuinely affecting women?
Like in my place, a woman is not supposed to verbalize about kolanuts, climb palm tree, go to mosques and so on. All these things are customary ways of pulling women down, but if women are given felicitous constitutional apperception, all those things will be a thing of the past.
Do you cerebrate the constitution will supersede culture?
Not that it will supersede culture; we are pleading that all the activities of women should be recognised. And I am earnestly stressing that the essence of engendering the Ministry of Women Affairs is to fight for the empowerment of women and our children because once there is a mother, there is a child. But for gender inequality, that should be in the Ministry of Youths.
Verbalizing about women empowerment, do you cerebrate Nigeria can engender a female president?
If God grants it, in 2019 after the second tenure of President Goodluck Jonathan, if the women cooperate with themselves and their husbands, there will be the first female President of Nigeria.
Copyright PUNCH.
