2023: Women group calls for female deputy governor in Enugu

Ahead of 2023 general elections, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) called “Women Support Women” (WSW) , has called on the Enugu State Government to give additional appointive positions to women.

In addition, the group which is a conglomeration of different women advocacy groups, also called on the government to appoint a woman as a deputy governor in 2023.

Addressing newsmen on behalf of the group, the State Coordinator of the Women Support Women, Mrs. Onyinye Mamah, said that they are out to dismantle men dominance in governance so that more women participate and contribute their quota to the building of the state and the nation in general.

Mamah said, “it is our heart desire that Enugu State continues to maintain the status of having female deputy governors while looking forward to having a woman as the governor.

Her words: “We want Enugu to maintain the status of a woman as a deputy governor and then we we want more women in appointive positions.

” As an advocacy group, we want to dismantle the status quo in the state assembly where we have only four women.”

According to her, they want the number of women in the state assembly to be at least six or the affirmative action of seven women in the assembly made up twenty-four.

She further said that a situation where only three women are commissioners out of seventeen is not good enough for the women and the state, adding that more women should be appointed SA, SSAs and SPAs to redress the gender imbalance.

She pointed out electing more women is not a favour but a statutory requirement.

“It is no longer like a kind of favour from the governor to appoint or elect women but it is a gender right that has been passed constitutionally for all the states to integrate,” she said.

Mamah however commended Governor feanyi Ugwuanyi for being the first governor in the state to have a woman as his deputy and sued that the status be maintained in addition to having more women appointed into positions of authority. “Our outcry as an advocacy group is that a woman remains the deputy governor and we want more women in appointive positions,” she reiterates.

She said that already they had penciled down some women who are qualified to take the position of deputy, in 2023.