Women’s inclusion in politics has long been a subject of debate in Nigeria. With a vast majority of political and leadership positions occupied by men, the country would rank among the countries providing little to no opportunities for women to take leadership.

To corroborate this, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), recently placed Nigeria as the 185 out of 193 countries on percentage of women in national parliaments.

However, Yayaha Bello, the governor of Kogi state seem to be changing this curve.

Kogi has 21 Local Government Areas, and at the moment, the vice-chairperson position of the legislative seats at the 21 local government (LG) councils is taken by women.

Speaking on this before the LGA elections earlier in December, Edward Onoja, deputy governor of Kogi, was quoted as saying, “we have several chairs of boards as women and just recently, our party, the All Progressives Congress is lining up 21 women as vice-chairperson candidates for the 21 local governments in Kogi state.”

Also, for the first time in the history of Nigeria, a female officer has been appointed as aide-de-camp (ADC) to a governor. This followed the deployment of Ifeoma Akaya to serve as the ADC to the Kogi governor.

Read full story: https://www.dateline.com.ng/women-politics-in-kogi-is-different-from-everywhere-else-in-nigeria/