Kaduna State House of Assembly Would have Women Representatives Come 2019 –Hon. Florence Diya

Kaduna State House of Assembly Would have Women Representatives Come 2019 –Hon. Florence Diya
Zainab Tanimu
Kaduna, North-West, NIGERIA
Hon. Florence Diya is one woman politician to be reckoned with in the political space of Kaduna state. She was a one- time House of Assembly member Kaduna state. Member House of Rep. whose time witnessed the passage of far reaching bills.
She is the President, Women Mentoring Forum.
This woman of substance driven by the passion to see that women make their mark in the political struggles had continuously engaged them on ways with which to reach leadership positions as no nation develops in isolation of the contributions of its women folks.
In this brief interview with Zainab Tanimu of Newsreservoir, she opens up on how well and how far the struggles have gone.
Excerpts.
Honorable, what really is this Forum all about?
Women Monitoring Forum has been in existence for about 15years now. We are mentoring women for political participation and for leadership roles both at the state and national levels.
Could give a brief into your political career?
I was elected into Kaduna State Assembly 1992, 1993. I was elected the second time to House of Rep. in 1999-2003. While in the House of Rep. as the Chairman, Committee on Women, one of the things we did then was to sponsor the bill of the disabled. The child’s rights bill was passed under us. Also addressed were the issue of violence against women and other women related issues.
What l do now in Kaduna state is to mentor younger women for political participation. Today we just had a meeting and the participation was encouraging. It has been a beautiful meeting.

Why have you chosen to go into mentoring women? Is it that women are not coming out to participate in politics?
Yes, women are not participating enough in politics so we thought that we should mentor them to participate more in politics. We tell them the dos and the don’ts; tell them the challenges and constraints, advantages and disadvantages and tell them the etiquette.
For example, if you want to go into politics as a woman, you must carry yourself with decorum. You have to carry yourself with respect, be you married or single woman. Decorum and respect is the rule.
What would you say with regards to response from the women?
The response so far is good. You can see the attendance yourself. Infact sometimes we use to have over sixty women.
What about the men, how supportive have they been?
They have been supportive because without their consents, these women wouldn’t have been here. All the parties are represented in this forum.
We have the APC, PDP, Labour party, DPP, APGA, infact all the major parties are represented here.
How hopeful are you in changing the political trend with regards to women emergence and occupying political positions?
We are very hopeful. We have two women councilors who won in the just concluded primaries in Chukun Local Government. We have another woman Mrs. Amoi for the state House of assembly. They are all our members.

As an old politician who contested alongside the men? What was your experience like? Was it challenging?
As an old politician it has been interesting contesting with the men. Though, l must admit that challenges out there are many for the women. They are more than the women can take.
There are many constraints. You have financial constraints, there is cultural constraint, there is religious constraints. You see, so many constraints but again if you look at the advantages, women have more chances to excel in whatever they do because in most committees now at the state and national level if there is a committee that has ten people, they would say 2 must be women. Just as they would say, there are 3 delegates in the ward, one must be a woman which means that the policy of governance is now recognizing women more and more. So if you look at women who join politics you find that they have more chances in excelling and more chances in participating than some of the men.
We are calling on them to come out and participate because by so doing they would be able to contribute their quota to the development of not only the state but the nation at large.
Are you promising us many women in the House of assembly this time around?
Yes, at least we would have 1 or 2 because last time there was none at all. In this next assembly, we are praying to have 2 to 3 women.