Institutionalized Marginalization Of Women & Youth Worrisome In Nigeria – Zainab Marwa-Abubakar.

Zainab Abubakar.

The Special Assistant to the Minister of the FCT on Community Relations, Zainab Buba Marwa, has said that women and youth should prepare to play very vital roles to drive gender inclusion in politics, as the country prepares for the 2023 general elections.

This, according to her, is a vital tool for inclusion in governance, which would help to create spaces for women and youth participation in political and entrepreneurial domains, as she says that gender inclusion gap in Africa was yet to be overcome, and more so, now that more is needed to achieve parity in youth and women’s access to governance and other political systems.

She said, “We are conversant with the problem of the systematic and institutionalized marginalization of women and youth based solely on their age, gender, limited opportunities, and assumed lack of political experience, but “I put it to you that mentorship is the single most important tool for creating a space of inclusivity for women and youth in both the political and entrepreneurial domain.”

She added also that women and youths could no longer continue to wait for the right time, the right government or the right economy to press for political inclusion.

Furthermore, “Across all strata of society and transcending all borders, the same rings true. In the interest of the quantum leap of inclusion, we seek and the paradigm shift to a culture of more subsumption of women and youth to occur, we must start with our very own selves and create those systems of mentorship in our own lives which will ultimately cascade down to create the wave of change that we so fervently crave. For the desired inclusivity, you will first have to include them at your level”, Zainab concluded.