Dr. Abiola Akiode, Executive Director, Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC) has said women deserve more appointment in the final list of Commissioners and Special Adviser nominees that Governor Babjide Sanwo-Olu transmitted to the Lagos State House of Assembly.
In an interview with Dr. Akiode on the final list which had four women out of 13 nominees, she said the governor should have strived to achieve 35% representation of women in his cabinet.
The first list that was sent by the governor had 8 women and 17 men while the second list has 4 women and 9 men which amounts to a total of 12 women and 26 men. With this, the percentage of women in Governor Sanwo-Olu’s cabinet is 31.5%.
Akiode said while the governor has done better compared to other states, he cannot be commended because he has not attained acceptable global standard for women in governance.
She said, “Lagos has always been the gateway and must show example to other state, one would have expected that with the quality and capacity of women in the state, the governor would have done better than this. The governor has done below expectation by appointing few women into his cabinet.
“During the campaign, there were many women who were part of the campaign train which means politically, there are viable women who are capable. Unfortunately, he has done this and while it appears better compared to other states because there’s no other state that has been able to attain 20% women representation. However, he cannot be commended because he has not done what is accepted as globally minimum standard.”
Akiode spoke about the Male Female ticket for Gubernatorial and Deputy Gubernatorial Seats which Lagos has been known for but changed with the emergence of Male Male Governor and Deputy. She buttressed that, “Lagos used to have Male as governor and female as deputy, Lagos modelled that in Nigeria and it was acceptable in other states, however, it was lost with the Male governor and Male deputy currently on seat and one would have expected that women would have been compensated with more appointive positions and meet up with at least 35% representation.”