A group, Nigerian Female Parliamentarians (NFP) in a courtesy visit to Mr Buhari wants the VP slot to go to women in the 2019 elections.
Elizabeth Ativie, the group’s spokesperson, could not hold her disappointment that Nigerian women have been pushed into background politics since 1999.
“Since 1999 we only have one principal officer each in the Senate and the House of Representatives. And in all the State Houses of Assembly we hold only 5% (positions); Women hold 5% of the total population of elected members of the State Houses of Assembly and we feel that this is not good enough for all the efforts we have put into the development of this country particularly in politics.
“We feel the trend now needs to be reversed and we feel you are the only one who can do it now. The implementation strategy is simple. Any statement you make today is a policy statement and is a law.” The spokesperson said.
“Where a man is a president we expect that the vice president should be a woman; where a man is speaker, we expect that the deputy speaker should be a woman and vice versa,’’ she said.
Ativie is also asking the Buhari government to invest more in women by creating an enabling environment for women to thrive and tackle the systemic and cultural hindrances to women’s inclusion in politics.
The group also called on the Inspector-General of Police to employ at least 35 per cent of women into the Police Force in its new recruitment exercise.