Betta: Tinubu as President will Implement 35% Affirmative Action for Women
The National Women Leader of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Betta Edu, in this interview with Emameh Gabriel speaks on the chances of her party winning the presidential election and the realization of 35% affirmative action for women if Asiwaju Bola Tinubu emerges President. Excerpts:
As the National Women Leader of the APC, and someone who was in the PDP last year, how easy are you finding it to adapt?
I’m not new in APC. A child who is over a year old cannot be said to be new but the new role as the APC national women leader has been a very interesting and intriguing one. It’s a different ballgame going into core of politics. Of course, I was a technocrat with some level of political exposure as a former Special Adviser to the governor, the commissioner for Health in Cross River State, the chairman of the Commissioners of Health in Nigeria, and of course, a member of the COVID task force. All of them had their own exposure and, of course, now it has risen to the point of being a national women leader. It’s just simply a bigger platform for me to politically influence the lives of millions of Nigerians positively.
You are probably the youngest women leader across parties in Nigeria today, what inspiration do you think you are to APC women, irrespective of age?
The election that brought me in as the youngest National Women leader in any political party in Africa was symbolic for our party. One, they were making a statement, a very strong statement that we are focusing on the youth and we are interested in giving them a seat at the table. Secondly, we are focusing on women and we want all the different levels of women to be involved in every single thing that we do as a party. Before, now you have most times very old women and then the younger ones were unable to compete with them. But here you are, I am a middle aged woman that’s like a bridge between the very young ones and the elderly ones. I’m not in my 18, I’m not in my 20s I’m in my 30s. I’m in the middle between the 40s, the 50s, the 60s and the 70s. That is the middle ground bridge building. I think that was part of what they were throwing at the table. And to make it even more symbolic, was the fact that they were bringing a core professional into party politics. I’m a medical doctor by training, a public health specialist. I’m a fellow of public health, the School of Public Health in United Kingdom. This was like bringing in a core professional into the political field so others can look and know that this is not about politics only. It’s not for just about anybody, we are bringing quality representation to the table for women in Nigeria.
How is your relationship with those who contested against you at the convention and women who were in the party before you came?
Definitely we are working as one big team. The job is enormous. And we cannot do it alone. We need all of them to be fully on board. And thankfully they are my sisters and we have been working together, they’re all happy and they have been working with me to achieve results. So the results you see is not the Betta Edu alone results. It’s a team work and all my sisters are happy with me. Even some of the people who had interest before it was zoned down to our state, are also on board with us. They’ve gone on different assignments for the party from the conventions, to the primaries, all the way down to the different programmes we have organized under the women’s wing. It has been a collective effort. And my sisters have been also supporting me all the way.
Have you been able to identify with them on mutual ground?
We know them. They’re just a few of them and all of us have been working together as a team.
What are your targets and goals for APC women and Nigerian women in general in mobilizing women for 2023 elections and victory of your party?
The 2023 elections will be won majorly by women. Our party, the APC is putting one of the best candidates that ever was on a presidential ticket in history of this country. We have put on that ticket a man with proven records. So we are not saying he will do this when he comes or he will do that, we are showing you people he has built in human capacity and human resources. We are showing you the Lagos before 1999 and the Lagos that you have today. If you can recall, I’m sure you know about the transportation in Lagos. Of course beyond that, this was a Lagos that used to have as little as N600 million as its revenue and today we are talking about over 60 billion. Today, it is the third largest economy in Africa.
We are talking about a man who was the first to begin this trend of taking a woman as Vice. That means promoting a woman to the level of co-governing a state when Nigeria has not even come to the exposure that we can put women in government. Today is now a trend. It is happening in Kaduna, it’s happening in Ogun State. Someone was able to take that bold step and said a woman was good enough to be the deputy and even a governor, should anything happen in this state. So, when we see reports or scorecard, we judge a man with his scorecards. What have you done? We know history, we know what he has done in the past. He has a wife. His wife is a Christian and a pastor. They have not for once had any issue on religion. They have religious tolerance, cohabit together, they live together as man and wife happily for many years as many years as they’ve been married. He has projected her to the highest legislative level in the country. His wife is a serving Senator. He shows that he is a man who promotes women, who pushes women to the limelight, give them a sense of belonging on the table. When you have such a man on the ballot box, why shouldn’t women support him? Asiwaju Tinubu has made people, whether they want to tell the truth or not. There are hundreds of thousands of people rising up everyday saying Asiwaju did this for me, did that for me. Musicians, sportsmen, name it are all out to see that Asiwaju is given that chance to do what he has done for them for Nigeria. I think Nigeria will be better off to have someone with the political will for you to be able to make changes in government. It’s not enough to have good will. For you to be able to make changes in government, you must have that political will to be able to even if hundred people’s greed will go down on this, I will do what will favour majority of Nigerians. Asiwaju is that man with that heart.
You have said so much about the impact of women politically, how much effort have you made to push for the proposed legislation for 35% affirmative action?
It is an important issue. I have already tabled it. We have issues around legislation. You might have the best of policies but legislation will make it sustainable. The legislation is not there, unfortunately it did not pass through but we believe in our next trial and with Asiwaju as our next president, it would go through. We have met him as individuals and have spoken with him. And he said I think 35% is even too small for women.
With the level of contribution to nation building and the speed that women bring to development, 35% is a cheat on them. Tinubu is committed to doing more than 35% and not just 35% in the periphery, I mean 35% of strategic positions that will in turn empower women across the country.
So for us, it is a win win situation for us with Ahmed Bola Tinubu and women will not gamble with it. We have strategies, we have started work already from the grassroots, from the polling units all the way to the national. Women are ready. We have drawn the map.
We have had discussions, we have held engagements and we will be moving into the field as soon as INEC blows the whistle that it’s time for campaigns. But more importantly before the campaign starts, APC women across the country, we are going round for empowerment, we have been carrying out free health outreaches for women and children. We are also going to do a one million Man March in each of those zones to work against electoral violence. Because violence will consume we women, violence will consume children. If violence consume our husbands and brothers, it will leave us at a vulnerable end. We don’t want to be vulnerable people anymore. We don’t want to be termed as vulnerable women and children. We want to be empowered, we want to be at the center and want our men to be with us. So we are marching against electronic volleys, those who planned for it, those who are involved in it, those who want to perpetuate it should be able to know that Nigerian women are ready to say now it will not happen.
What’s the chances of your party winning the 2023 general election with focus specifically on Adamawa State where you have a female governorship candidate?
She’s winning. I can categorically tell you that Senator Binani is the next Governor of Adamawa State by the grace of God. She is winning. She’s a woman who has done a lot of work in Adamawa State. I’m very proud of my party. We are the only party in Nigeria that gave its tickets to a woman to run. So it shows you that we’ve gone beyond the primordial level of politics. We’re playing advanced politics. She would pull through as the first elected female governor in Nigeria. We are also of the opinion that those who have paired with women too would also get votes from women. We are encouraging our APC women to go all out and support her. We have special strategy for Adamawa that I will not be releasing here. But take it from me, take it to the bank, Senator Binani is the next governor of Adamawa State.
Do you have a comprehensive list of woman contesting on the platform of the APC for various legislative positions in next year’s election?
We have all the list and we are beginning our training for them on the 31st of August to the September 2. We are having training here in Abuja for all the APC candidates that are coming to the National Assembly. We need to start on time to help support them to win the elections and become full fledged members of the National Assembly, after which we will also begin from this credit to tell them the work that they are going to do. It is not to go there and just sit down and play the usual politics. But this time around, we want to ensure that all our bills scale through. Unlike before that we had about seven to nine persons in APC, that level of the National Assembly, right now we have almost 30 candidates for the APC. We are positive that by God’s grace, they will scale through and can now be able to present our women’s issue, gender related issues on the floor of the National Assembly. Of course, permit me to state that for the first time, we gave free forms to women in our party to encourage a lot of women participation and inclusion at all levels. And we are happy to note that we have jumped from the almost about 20 in 2015 and maybe close to 40 in 2019 to almost 80 female candidates running under our party in 2023. That’s a huge leap.
You cannot empower a woman by just saying women. We deal with Tyra power we sing them by giving them a seat at the table, give them political appointments and let them into positions from the grassroots. Most of the states will be doing the local government elections soon.
