Women must start strategizing towards 2019

Olufunke Baruwa is the Nigerian Women Trust Fund new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Baruwa worked with PTF, NAPEP and the OSSAP-MDGs in the areas of project management, public policy, gender advocacy and social development. In this chat with ENE OSANG she stresses need for women in politics to begin strategies on winning elective offices come 2019 now.

How do you feel being elected the new CEO of the NWTF?
It’s a familiar territory in the sense that I have been a board member of the trust fund when I was the desk officer gender at the office of the SSA to the President on MDG’s. My office was instrumental to setting up the fund and at that time provided the initial take of grant so, it’s a familiar territory but working from the inside is a bit different and has its own challenges.

What are you bringing to the table?
I would like to say here that my predecessor Aisha Osori, the first CEO did a fantastic job as she took the fund to a very high level and I would try as much as possible to surpass that. I am bringing the experience of civil service to the table, for 15 years I have worked with the civil service where I had the opportunity to interface with the society, the private sector, government, public policy planning, project implementation and years of interfacing with various actors in development. I believe that these experience and background would be brought to bear on the fund going forward. I am looking at us being ready for the 2019 elections we will start early to begin recruiting women into political parties, we will start early to negotiate with leaders of political parties to give women more space in the party executives and so on.

For women who said they didn’t benefit the fund started in 2011 with just a hundred million and all that money came from the MDG’s. I think the highest was for women who went for Senate for vice President, Governors was just half a million and half a million from 100 million will just be about 200 women who got the fund. For the fund to be very effective we need at least a billion Naira and our hope is to be able to grow the fund to at least half a billion.

Tell us about the fund and what it’s set to achieve?
The fund is meant to close the gender gap in governance at all levels, what this means is that right now we only have 7% of women in the 8th National Assembly and this is a drop from  the 11% that we had in 2011 election. Now we just have eight women in the Senate and 16 women in the House at the federal level the disparities at the local government levels are also very huge we do not have a female governor we have only some deputy governors and we are not anywhere nears the 35% affirmative action set out in the National Gender Policy of 2007. We need to do more and basically the fund is not to dish out money to women but we use it to build capacity of women, teach them lobbying, campaign strategy, help them with their ICT materials, posters, banners, town hall meetings, give them capacity to engage with their constituency I think women need those skills to be able to run for election and participate at primaries.

Would you say the women politicians are well informed about the fund?
Yes we have 167 million people in Nigeria and half of them are women. I would not say that 10% of us are aware of the funds because the fund just started we are barely four years old there is a lot of work to be done a lot of advocacy and sensitization we have a website that is very interactive for women and we have been going round like my predecessor have met with a lot of professional women groups and I have continued in that I have met with FIDA, NAWOJ, WIPF, I am meeting with male party executives to market women and so that consistent advocacy we are partnering with DFID, USAID, IRI and so many of these donors including the Netherlands embassy as well as lots of others I can mention. By that way we are building our base daily and letting more people know.

I will disagree with women saying they didn’t get the fund because in 2011 a lot of women got the money but it wasn’t as much as people would have expected because it wasn’t much. We needed to build a base for the fund to enable it be more structured because we cannot have a fund without a management and we have come thus far and the most important thing is to continue to build that awareness and that is why I said we are not waiting till 2019 election we are starting now because a lot of women who want to go into positions even in AMAC have been coming to the office and we speak to them on how to do lobbying and campaigning. Some of these women who contested for the 2015 elections we paid for their campaign managers to help them structure their campaign to reach and build their constituency base.

What are the criteria for assessing the fund?
We have a long list of criteria including that you must be registered with a political party, you must have won your primaries because there is no point campaigning for you when you have not won your primaries so our criteria are just basic things to show that you are running for an office so we don’t just waste money.

How would you assess the just concluded elections?
I think we gave it our best shot but it wasn’t as we expected. Women came out, women ran for elections, they voted for people and they were voted for, you are aware of what happened in Taraba state and we still have a lot of issues with women being denied party tickets even when they win primaries so we need to still come together the fund is still there to help as many women as possible but I would like us to do much more better than we did in the past.

There are only a few succesful women after the election, what actually went wrong?
I think we are still not developed to the point where Nigerians begin to see women as equals in terms of governance. Women are still on the pedestal of politics that is why the fund is bent on closing the gender gap at all levels of governance not just at federal level but at the state and local government levels in appointive and elective positions. Also the patriarchal nature of our society is also there and I think women need to come out more and to build their constituency this is very important.

Men start early, they have money to run for elections women don’t have, and the electoral process in Nigeria is still capital intensive. We need to be able to diverge money politics until we do that a lot of women will still be alienated because we cannot match the capital base of men in elections. So the Nigerian elections, the electoral act, INEC itself need to bring up some stringent guidelines on raising funds for elections I mean you cannot match a person who has billions to throw away even when you have enough to offer on the table because that itself is affecting a lot of women.

How can women do better in 2019?
I think women that have been tested and tried their constituency has always come out to say yes they have done well. Women have all it takes but all we need is a level playing field for them to be able to emerge as winners in party primaries.

Do you see the current administration involving women in governance as much as the past did?
I want to believe that the current administration knows what is good and will not deny women their rightful place in the polity that is why I said in both appointive and elective. Elective is gone till 2019 apart from some states who are going to have elections soon however, we need the President to consider the inclusion of women in selection of officials for heads of parastatals of government and agencies, Ministers, cabinet special advisers and the rest of them. I want to believe that he is a man with integrity and he will do the right thing because women have as much stake in Nigeria as the men.

What is the spread of the organization, how can rural women politicians asses the funds?
We only have an office in Abuja for now, we cannot have offices in all the states but we have an interactive website with phone numbers that people can reach us, INEC is here and work with us as well and we hope that we will diversify to have zonal offices but for now we do not have the capacity to do that.
However we have civil society organizations we work with, we work with women political party organization founded by ministry of women affairs in 2006 and spread across the six geo political zones. Abuja is a central place and there is no way if you are going into elections even if it is local government people always come to Abuja to do one or two things. If you are a woman politician you need to go wherever is important to you but we can even go to some of them like when elections was on we went to states as Independent electoral monitors we worked with INEC so that’s not a problem.

Do you face any challenges?
The major challenge is funds, like I said it’s a fund and we need some money we can rely on and fall back on. We need sufficient and consistent funding to carry out our programmes, we have the support of many donor organizations but we need business women, philanthropists, foundations, organizations who support our cause to continue to do so. We need people to sponsor a woman just like men are sponsored; you can pay for a campaign director for a woman to encourage her but we need to continue to raise funds through fund raisers, launching and things like that.

How much do you spend on each woman vying for political office?
It depends on the office and like I said we don’t give money, we support but you need to send us your campaign strategy and then we pick things that we can do like posters, banners, organize town hall meetings, pay for venues, transportation and help with campaign but we cannot give you funds directly.

What has the fund achieved for women so far?
The fund has recruited a lot of women into political parties, we have negotiated on behalf of hundreds of women to get into political parties, we have trained a lot of women like one lady going for AMAC house of representative was here last week and we have been giving her all the information she needs even before next year.

We have been able to start up programmes on leadership building we also have programmes that takes us to universities we started with Nasarawa state university, we have gone to University of Abuja, college of education Zuba, and we hope to go to other schools and begin to talk to girls and mentor them through our mentee programme where women already established in politics talk to these girls and create awareness.

We have hundreds of volunteers who are ready to talk to women who are campaigning, the fund have also helped over 250 women during campaigns some of them have won party seats in 2011 and some also came out successful in
2015. We have also been able to give women a voice through the fund by raising a lot of voter awareness as we work with INEC to encourage women to come so I think the fund has achieved a lot and there is still more to be achieved.

It is believed that women are their own enemies is this true, can you share your experience working with/for women?
I don’t believe that because it’s only a stereotype jingle that men and enemies of progress have played so much, and you know when people drum a particular thing into your ears for a long time before you know it will begin to affect you that is what has happened with women. Men fight and there is a fight currently at the National Assembly and if it was a woman fighting they will say women hate themselves and all that but since this fight nobody has said men pull themselves down, these are stereotypes and I don’t believe in it. My predecessor and I are in contact we talk all the time and she has given me so many things she plans to do in the future which her tenure did allow but she said she is available for me to talk to anytime. I have also had women who have supported me in my 16 years of career development and they are still supporting me. My mentor is a woman and so people say this and we help them to propagate it but I don’t want to believe that.

The current happening in the Senate is a pointer to the fact that squabbles arise even between men it’s the way you settle it that matters. Sometimes men also say these things to keep us apart and they have so drummed it into our ears that we also now voice it and when you say a thing all the time before you know it becomes a part of you so we need to break that circle of stereotyping the relationship between women.
It’s just like blaming the society problems on women because everybody wants to be in control. We have religious and traditional believes of how husbands and wives should behave but country is not marriage that a man should be the head in that terms. The country is a circular state and everybody both male or female can head it so I think a level playing field is what matters but a lot of men churn out some of these things to keep us perpetually at home.

There is so much carnage in the world, world war 1 and 2 happened and women were not there when it happened and it was not because women were not at home so I think women can balance home and work as well because today there are lots of websites, write-ups on how to manage your home and career so women are working and they are captains of industries, scientists, pilots, medical doctors, teachers and also home keepers. Women can multi task and I think they can have it all.

So how do you manage your work and home?
I have a home I have children and a partner who is very understanding. It is your partners support either male or female that helps one achieve a lot because I don’t think that God created women just to have children because if that’s the case then we are no less than animals. We are a species that is beyond animals and we have the opportunity to achieve whatever we want to achieve just like the men.

What inspired you to gender activism is it because you are a woman?
Not necessarily, after my university days I had the opportunity to serve at the Ajaokuta steel in the 90’s and when I finished school. I wanted to just go into the banking world but somehow I got a job with the petroleum special trust fund and we were doing a lot of projects in road, health and it just became interesting to see how government can use finances to transform the lives of people and that was how I had interest in development work, and I felt that it is the responsibility of government to provide basic amenities for people and make life better for the people.
From there I went on to the National poverty eradication programme, I was a programme officer in PTF, a programme officer in NAPEP and from there I went to the MDG’s office as desk officer gender and that’s how my life has been revolving.

What did you study in school?
I read business administration in school but I had an MBA in management and I also now got a post graduate certificate in public policy and management and several certificates on gender planning, public policy, gender mainstreaming amongst others.

So how was growing up like?
I have always been an outspoken person and I was given a certificate when I was in the university as the most outspoken person because I hate injustice and unfairness and I want to see women and girls included in development and I feel that everybody have a stake in this country as a citizen and nobody should be under-served because of their gender, upbringing, color or tribe.

Where do you see yourself in the nearest future?
Let me finish the work in hand now, I am a civil servant I took a leave of absence from government on secondment to do this job and I hope to go back to public service with better experience of both world. Now am with the civil society, I partner with them and I want to maybe head another international project.

Do you have any leisure at all?
Yes I do, my weekends are strictly for me, I can take work home only on special circumstances else I try to finish everything by Fridays.

What are your hubbies?
I take my kids out to swimming or take a walk in the evening or just generally check into a hotel and spend weekends there together.

What would be your advice for women?
We are looking at 2019 now because 2015 has passed. Women should start early in planning, making your constituency know you by reaching out to community leaders, meet with people of means and no means because four years is too short to even plan so don’t say it’s too long. Start as early as possible to reach out to organizations that can support you and begin to create that interest. Find an area that you are good at and make sure you are the best in that area and let the people also see that you are the best person for that job.