As agitations by individuals and geo-cultural
groups for the restructuring of Nigeria have become rife recently, women in the
Federal Capital Territory have called on government at all levels to come to
their aids and make lives more meaningful for their communities which they said
lack basic amenities.
The women made this demand at the ‘Women
Rising On The State Of The Nation’ rally organized by ActionAid Nigeria (AAN)
at the Unity Fountain in Abuja on Wednesday. The women from the six Abuja rural
communities of Dakwa, Jiwa, Pacepa, Tunganasara, Kuchiguyi and Kayache said
gender equality should not be a woman issue but issue for humanity.
They urged the legislative arms of government
to pass the gender and equal opportunities bill (GEO) which they argued will
respect the rights of the women. They said the bill when passed into law will
uphold women and girls sexual reproductive right and ensures protection against
sexual harassment in education, employment and political domains.
Speaking on behalf of their colleagues, Hajara
Abubakar, Kande Yakubu and Adamu Amamatu from Dakwa, Jiwa and Tunganasara
respectively called on government to provide the basic amenities like schools,
pipe-borne water, electricity and most importantly to empower them to support
their families.
“Our children trek several kilometers going to
schools and it is not encouraging. We have lost some of them to hit and run
drivers. We don’t have drinkable water in our communities and there is no power
supply. We want Federal Government, the Federal Capital Territory
Administration (FCTA) and the Area Councils to come to our aid,” they stated’
Speaking with LEADERSHIP, ActionAid’s women’s
right programme manager, Nkechi Ilochi-Omekedo, said the role of ActionAid is
to facilitate process that will attract government to provide basic facilities
to the rural people while at the same time complementing government’s efforts
by catering for the people.
“What we do basically at our organization is
to put into place what is called pilot project to showcase that with little or
specific amount of money, you will be able to provide specific services for
people. What we do is let people know about what is going on. We have worked in
over 200 communities and we select them based on the hard-to reach-communities
and we worked with them to provide health care centers, schools, water and
basic and essential needs,” Ilochi-Omekedo said.
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