A non-profit organization, the Akin Fadeyi Foundation, will launch a competition for women to stimulate conversation about gender-inclusive leadership in Nigeria.
The event labeled ‘What Women Can Do’ will kick off with a pre-event media conversation on July 19 at 11am and will feature actors and professionals from media and public policy, including newspaper editors and platforms online news outlets, along with women leaders.
According to a press release signed by the organization’s executive director, Akin Fadeyi, on Wednesday, the aim of the event is to shed light on the exclusion of women in government.
For example, despite the fact that women competed as candidates during the political parties’ recently concluded presidential primaries, none emerged as a candidate
Additionally, data from a 2021 Global Gender Gap Index from the World Economic Forum (WEF) ranked Nigeria in position 139 out of 153 countries, the worst ranking since 2006.
Addressing this, Mr. Fadeyi said the event will talk about how “leadership would have much more impact when women were empowered to act as equal stakeholders in national development”.
It will also “encourage women to persevere in their leadership ambitions despite the current twists and turns in Nigerian politics, to reaffirm their capacities as equally gifted social actors who are in no way intellectually subservient, and to stimulate public conversation about the need for gender parity in access to power”.
Competition Details
Competitors are expected to make leadership pitches and speak on anything from agriculture to education, healthcare, power generation, science and innovation.
From this, ten finalists will be selected, the top five finalists will be rewarded with different gifts based on the strength, innovation, uniqueness and acceptability of their releases and the other five finalists will walk away with consolation prizes.
Election monitoring app
Mr. Fadeyi also reported that the foundation will implement its FlagIt application for election observation, tracking and reporting.
This, according to him, will deepen the work of political and social accountability as the general elections of 2023 approach.