…Fintiri led – copy and paste – government; riding on amazon’s amazing innovation…
…Credible information available to us indicates that the Adamawa state government has rolled out a number of activities to “empower” about 5000 women at Ribadu Square on Tuesday the 14th of March… Is it a backdoor process of vote buying using an official window?…
…How come for the past 3 years and 10 months the government never considered nor remembered that women needed to be empowered?…
…For a government that banned NGOs from providing support to indigent people to wake up a few days to the election and do what they stopped others from doing goes beyond contradiction. It speaks to hypocrisy…
…Were it not for the amazing Amazon of Adamawa politics, Senator Aishatu Dahiru Ahmed Binani none of what is happening would have happened. No woman will be made running mate. No one would have gone out to reach out to women. And most importantly no empowerment would have taken place. Our women should know that such victory requires a champion to achieve…
By Ahmad Sajoh
One of the lines in the women’s anthem says “so sing a song for women everywhere” today I am going to sing a song for our lucky women of Adamawa state.
When a heroine appears on the horizon the effects permeate all over. Since the emergence of Senator Aishatu Dahiru Ahmed Binani as the gubernatorial candidate of the APC in Adamawa State, many good things have been coming to the women of the state. The fact that Senator Binani leads while others follow means she is a trailblazer. She shines the path and copycats follow. This is the stuff leaders are made of. With all the conspiracies around her, she still leads and serves as good news to Adamawa people especially our women.
There are concerted efforts to fight her from many quarters but that does not in any way diminish the fact that her emergence is indeed a lucky charm for Adamawa women.
Since her emergence, everyone has been focusing on the role of women in politics. Some are very positive like making women running mates, while others are ignominious like saying women cannot lead. I saw someone who went to a woman’s house not long ago to collect money to feed his family saying women cannot lead. I nearly told him that his respectful wife who struggles to earn legitimately is better at leadership than his beggarly self.
Credible information available to us indicates that the Adamawa state government has rolled out a number of activities to “empower” about 5000 women at Ribadu Square on Tuesday the 14th of March. That is really cheering news. Whether it is an incentive to curry votes ahead of the rescheduled governorship election is a different matter entirely.
For a government that banned NGOs from providing support to indigent people to wake up a few days to the election and do what they stopped others from doing goes beyond contradiction. It speaks to hypocrisy. But many of us are not amused at all. The copy and paste is really interesting. When Senator Aishatu Dahiru Ahmed Binani emerged as a candidate, the first thing they did was to drop their deputy Governor and pick a woman. When she continued her empowerment programs, a hitherto recluse personality was made to come out forcefully to provide similar items given by Senator Binani.
Senator Binani has held more than three empowerment programmes in the last few days. Now they are holding one. Just copy and paste, no innovation. Using an official window to campaign for votes calls all the bravado about winning elections to question.
Those who are confident of victory should not be desperate. This is indeed an act of desperation. But our lucky Adamawa women know exactly why this sudden empowerment came about. Their best bet is to follow their heroine. And do so they will.
Now that the APC gubernatorial candidate has started touching lives as she always did, they are organizing a women empowerment programme to target women with money. Is that a backdoor process of vote buying using an official window? Well whatever it is we welcome it on the grounds that it will benefit our lucky Adamawa women. How come for the past 3 years and 10 months the government never considered nor remembered that women needed to be empowered?
This is really interesting. Due to the fact that Senator Binani’s actions flow from the heart, the copy and paste artists should be prepared to do more because many more such activities are in the offing. She is not pretending. She is not grandstanding. She is doing something she is known for from childhood. You do not pretend to care about people’s welfare. You either do or you don’t. Those who don’t simply do it to curry votes. It will simply fizzle out after the elections.
But those with a milk of kindness in their hearts do it anytime regardless of circumstances. But we hope that this habit will be internalized by the people doing it now. Please carry on. We really want our people, especially our mothers, to enjoy such gestures. Please carry on. But if you think it will enable you to harvest votes of women, then you have another thing coming. The women are wise enough to know where this is coming from and what it is going for. No need to say more.
When the women gather at Ribadu Square they will be told that empowerment of women has suddenly become a policy of the government. Why it was not so all these years may not be asked or answered but then there is no problem. But it will be a question within the dark recesses of both the takers and the givers. But does it really matter? What matters is that at least the sudden realization that women matter is very good. But they should realize that were it not for the amazing Amazon of Adamawa politics, Senator Aishatu Dahiru Ahmed Binani none of what is happening would have happened. No woman will be made running mate. No one would have gone out to reach out to women. And most importantly no empowerment would have taken place. Our women should know that such victory requires a champion to achieve. Senator Binani is the champion that makes all of that possible.
They can collect whatever is given to them especially from the government because it is their entitlement. But their votes should be for their heroine who made it all possible. She is the one that should merit their votes. That’s the bottom line.
Why did women become so important in the politics of Adamawa State? The answer is simply based on the role they played in the emergence of Senator Aishatu Dahiru Ahmed Binani as the gubernatorial candidate of APC and their steadfast defense of her candidature.
When Adamawa women organized peaceful protests in all the Local Government Areas in defense of her candidature after the first court setback it became clear that no one will take our women for granted again. Freedom is not a cheap commodity. It requires courage and determination. Our women have earned that through the courage and determination with Senator Binani as the arrowhead.
Congratulations to the beneficiaries of the “empowerment” Collect the money. You deserve it. It may be late in coming, but like they always say, “better late than never”