Emir of Keffi attributes women’s political apathy to lack of finance, culture
By Matthew Eloyi
Alhaji Shehu Yamusa III, the Emir of Keffi in Nasarawa State has revealed that lack of finance is the major factor hindering women participation in politics in Nigeria.
Yamusa, who is also the Chancellor of Nasarawa State University, said this when the delegation from the National Democratic Institute (NDI) Supporting Advancement of Gender Equality (SAGE) International and National Working Group, visited him in his palace.
In his words, “One of the major challenges for women is finance; most of them don’t have the finance to be able to participate fully in politics.
“The second challenge is culture. Most importantly, I will like to draw the attention of the entire nation that culture and politics are two different things.
“We are always mixing culture and politics that is why most women cannot contest, so we must carry them along.
“So what we are trying to do is for people to understand the difference between culture and politics; you cannot mix the two.
“If people understand it very well, politics will be fantastic in Africa.”
The emir called on women who have succeeded in politics to support and pull upcoming ones through mentorship to overcome the hurdles of the process.
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He said that it was time for the nation to allow women’s home management performance skills to translate into nation building.
The leader of the delegation, Former President of Kosovo, Atifete Jahjaga said that she was impressed with the work the emir was doing to support women in governance.
According to Jahjaga, the SAGE Working Group has a mission to support the Nigerian government and the Nigerian people to contribute on increasing the percentage of women into politics.