Kwara has a proud history of women in national leadership. This is not a demand. It is a respectful, heartfelt appeal to the party faithful, and the leaders of this great state to let that history live again.
That is a tradition worth reviving. And right now, the national conversation is making that revival more urgent than ever.
When women lead, communities thrive. Kwara knows this. It has seen it. It is time to see it again.
At the National Assembly today, a bill proposing special reserved seats
for women in Nigeria’s federal and state legislatures is actively being
debated. It exists because Nigeria’s female legislative representation hovering between 3% and 5% across successive assemblies remains one of the lowest in the world, against a global average exceeding 26%.
The bill is an honest acknowledgement that goodwill alone has not been enough. That women’s voices in governance need deliberate, structural support. That democracy is incomplete when more than half the population has no seat at the table where their lives are decided.
President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has made women’s inclusion a living, visible pillar of his Renewed Hope Agenda- not in words only,
but in the cabinet appointments, the policy direction, and the governing
philosophy of his administration. Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq
has matched that energy in Kwara through appointments, through
education reform, through social investment that deliberately reaches
women first. Both leaders have done their part. They have set the table.
What remains is for the party faithful to sit down at it and act accordingly.
Into this moment comes Hon. Adejoke Mistura Adeyemi— a woman who has spent years serving her community without waiting for a title to justify it. She is the only woman in Kwara State who has formally declared for a federal legislative seat in this cycle. She is not asking for charity. She is asking for the same opportunity that Kwara’s political leaders once gave to the women who came before her and who made this state proud.
She is not asking for charity. She is asking for the same opportunity Kwara once gave the women who made this state proud
To every party leader, delegate, and stakeholder reading this —the appeal is simple. You have, in your hands, the power to add a beautiful
chapter to Kwara’s story. Not because anyone is demanding it. Not because a law requires it. But because it is right. Because your mothers, your daughters, your sisters, and the women of this state have always deserved a voice in the National Assembly and you are the ones who can give it to them.
Kwara has done this before. Kwara can do it again. Let this be the
moment we choose to.
Women belong at the table. Let us bring them back.
Her Seat. Our Voice. Our Future.
Adeoti James writes from Oyun LGA, Kwara State.
