GROUP LAMENTS UNDER-REPRESENTATION OF FEMALES IN LEADERSHIP
By Segun Awofadeji

October 26, 2003 – (This Day (Lagos) The Executive Director, Female Leadership Forum (FLF), Barrister Comfort Idika-Ogunye has lamented the under-representation of females in leadership positions of all the tertiary institutions across the country, which she noted was less than two per cent.

Idika-Ogunye who was speaking in a welcome address at the North-east zonal workshop on Civic Education and Capacity Building for female students in Nigeria's tertiary institutions held in Awala Hotel, Bauchi in Friday noted that statistics show that females occupy less than two per cent of the leadership.

The Executive Director, explained that such representation of females in leadership positions in the nation's tertiary institutions often led to the marginalisation of women in national politics regretting that "we discovered in the cause of our mobilization tour across the country that females were everywhere but did not feature in leadership or decision making madicinery existing in their institutions".

Idika-Ogunye who was the first female President of the National Association of Nigeria Students (NANS) said that emphasis was on higher institutions because of FLF's believe that leadership skills could be built and developed if females participate effectively in school politics.

According to her, "our objectives is to built a mass of conscientious women who would have interest in gender issues and engaged in advocacy around these areas", adding that the objective of the workshop was to enable female students in tertiary institutions to have a broad understanding of politics and governance.

The workshop which attracted participants from Bauchi, Adamawa, Taraba, Bornu, Yobe and Jigawa, she said was aimed to facilitate the recognition of partriachal barriers, discriminatory beliefs, customs, regulations and laws that inhibit women's right, they can live a worthy life.

In a welcome address, the state field manager of vision project, Mrs. Juliana Nathaniel said that the workshop was organised to train sports personnel on the menace and prevention of the spread of HIV in the country.

She called on the participants to make the best use of what they learnt during the workshop for the benefit of their communities.

Meanwhile, a novelty football match between the Ambassadors of Sports for Life and Junior Wikki Football Club will be played on Saturday at the Police Football pitch to round off the training workshop.

From: http://allafrica.com/stories/200310270411.html