At a time like this that awards and honours have almost lost their meaning and essence, any award to the Iyaloja and Iyalode Yoruba of Abuja, a foremost entrepreneur, politician and gender rights activist, Oloye Oluwatoyin Badmus, is unique and significant, particularly coming at a time that politicians of different hues are all over the place again, after four years, seeking helpless women to exchange their votes for wrappers.
This is what the indomitable women rights advocate has been fighting as a politician, business woman and a philanthropist employing her impactful leadership of Asiwaju Women Cooperative Society and Member All Progressives Congress (APC) National Women Lobby Group to advance for some time now.
In a country like Nigeria where politics is dominated by men, Iyalode Toyin Badmus has been at the forefront of advocacy for gender balance and rights notwithstanding the refusal by the National Assembly to accord due attention to those bills that promote the welfare and well being of the Nigerian women.
She believes that women leaders in APC are already changing the narrative and taking the lead in the advocacy.
Hear her: ‘’the result of the last congress of our party APC nationwide witnessed more women winning elections in their areas. Though we can do better, you will agree with me that gone are the days when women took the back seat; presently, the women are ready to take over the driver’s wheel and lead us to the right destination’’, she said in a recent interview with a newspaper.
‘’The APC Women Lobby Group set up by our national woman leader, Hon. Stella Okotete is really working hard to ensure that women are supporting other women. Women should support and help each other. The pull-her-down syndrome is not helping us. We can achieve more by being united.
‘’As Iyaloja of Abuja, I have been encouraging market women to identify and choose the leaders that will add value to their lives, not those that will buy their future and that of their children with wrapper and rice for every 4years’’, she added.
According to her, the idea behind setting up the ACWS was position women in the party to actualize their dreams without hanging their hopes on male politicians.
‘’I am in politics to make a difference by ensuring women take the rightful positions. I am not there to contest for any position. I am over sixty to the glory of God. ACWS is a group that was formed based on my experience of what happens during the election. Politicians will give out gifts items to women so as to vote for them. After they are voted in, these women will be abandoned for the next four years.
In ACWS, we talk about the need for politicians to empower women and not to wait to bribe them during the election period. If women are empowered by the politicians before the election, the women will identify with politicians who empowered them and vote for them knowing full well that when such politicians get into office they will do more’’, she disclosed.
She emphasized that the group’s main Focus is Women Empowerment, enabling the average woman who doesn’t know where her next meal is coming from, so she can be a better person in life and also extend the kind gesture to her immediate environment.
She contended that ACWS is founded on the importance of women in the society and also driven by sense of focus, stability, independence and progress for women’s empowerment especially at the grassroots. AWCS is about our women been empowered, especially the grassroots women.
‘’They should not be incapacitated, they should not be forgotten or taken for granted rather they should be financially, physically, mentally empowered and stable, so they can choose the right leader. Our aim is to teach our women how to fish.
‘’When a woman is financially stable, the burden will be reduced on men and when we have a happier home, the society will be better because whatever that happens in the home transcends into society’’, she opined.
Speaking on how she ventured into politics combined with her many years of doing successful business, she said women were multi-taskers born with the capacity to run many things simultaneously.
‘’Going inside the local market setting changed everything, because I come across women that will travel from Nyanya to Wuse market in Abuja just to hawk pure water because they have families to feed. One will now wonder how they cope, yet politicians will come around once in four years just to get their votes with peanut. It was at this stage that I became a politician. Somebody has to speak out for them. For me, it was natural and l’m ready to engage them in grassroots politics as they progress across all levels’’, she said.
On the vexed issue of gender rights in the country, she believes that much ground still needed to be covered to ensure equity and justice in the country.
‘’Gender equality is when people of all genders have equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities. Gender equality prevents violence against women and girls. It is essential for economic prosperity if all genders have equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities’’, she submitted.
‘’I think we still have a long way to go, despite the fact that we are the largest voters when it comes to election, the only position for women in all the political parties is women leader; why can’t we have a female president or vice president? Take, for instance, Kamala Harris, the US Vice President, she is very supportive with Joe Biden, a great combination.
‘’But I won’t blame men because most times women are each other’s worst enemy. If you have a female presidential candidate today Nigerian women will not vote for her; they will rather queue behind a man and most women in position don’t help other women unless one is ready to worship them. The pull-her-down syndrome needs to stop’’, she said
