by Topsy Oba
Scores of women under the aegis of the Women Arise for Change Initiative on Thursday besieged the office of Lagos State governor in Alausa, Ikeja, to register their displeasure over the allocation of N4 billion in the 2013 budget for the proposed building of an office for African First Ladies Mission Initiative which they see as Patience Jonathan’s baby.
Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, who backed the protest, in a letter read by the President of Women Arise, Joe Okei-Odumakin, described the proposed budget as a mind-boggling fiscal misappropriation.
The protest march took off at the premises of Lagos Television (LTV), Agidingbi, Ikeja, to the State House, Ikeja, where a letter of grievance was delivered to Governor Babatunde Fashola for onward transmission to President Goodluck Jonathan.
In his letter, Soyinka said the latest move by Jonathan to set up such initiative for his wife and legalise the office of the First Lady, was another “egregious conspiracy to drain the Nigerian treasury, mounted in the name of a high-flying member of your gender.
“I have therefore elected not to lend my affection to any one individual, but the entire bevy of First Ladies of the African continent-and that includes First Male Spouses.
Speaking, Okei-Odumakin, in a letter to Jonathan, said women were scandalised by the culture of waste that had become the hallmark of governance in Nigeria, especially in recent times.
She stated the latest of such fiscal waste was the N4 billion allocated for the building of an office for Nigeria’s First Lady, Patience Jonathan’s African First Ladies Mission Initiative, an allocation which was provided for in the Federal Capital Territory’s 2013 Budget.
She said the move was an affront to Nigerians and should be vehemently resisted by all right-thinking members of the society.
Fashola, who received the letter, commended the women for their peaceful demonstration, saying it was a symbol of their own responsibilities of participation in the country’s democratic journey.
0 comments:
Post a Comment