Hajia Aisha Jumai Alhassan, the first woman from Taraba State to win election into the National Assembly, beating former governor, Rev. Jolly Nyame, in last Saturdays senatorial election, told CHARLES AKPEJI in Jalingo how she intends to improve the lots of women nationwide.WHAT is your impression of the National Assembly election, especially with your election as the first female senator from Taraba StateMy experience was wonderful and challenging. Ii was challenging, but wonderful.The challenges were first of all being a woman contesting with men, not ordinary men, but among them, the former governor of state state, Rev. Jolly Nyame, who was under the impression that he was a godfather of Taraba politics and nobody could even dare contest anything with anybody he is backing or sponsoring, let alone himself.So, I took the bull by the horn and I thank God that things turned out in my favour. At least people now know that power belongs to God and not human beings.No matter how big you think you are, no matter how highly-placed you think you are, and no matter how rich you think you are, when it comes to election, you have to go out and reach out to the people and convince them that you can deliver.Defeating Nyame was a very big challenge for me, but I thank God I was braved enough to go through it and God helped and showed everybody that it is not all about whom you are or what you have, but what the people want.The election, so far, is the best I have ever experienced in my life. I have in the past, even though not active, being watching previous elections, because my family is a political family and I have a political background.I watched every election keenly to see what was happening and in my opinion, this is the best election I have ever seen.What made it differentIt is well organised, free, transparent and fair, because accreditation was done and everybody was there. After the accreditation, voting was carried out in an orderly manner.More so, voters waited for the votes to be counted in their various voting units, which is quite wonderful, and the results were also declared unit by unit before they got to the wards.What negative aspects did you observed and would want INEC to improve on in subsequent electionsThe whole exercise was done on Election Day by mostly by corps members, who dont have the much-needed experience. Agreed that they should be made useful by serving Nigeria, but they should be under the supervision of people that are used to this kind of thing, because we had hitches here and there due to fact that they were not efficient enough.Even though they were trained, the period of training, it would appear, was not enough to make them near perfect.How do you feel being the first woman from the state to be elected member of the National AssemblyIt is wonderful, especially when I defeated somebody that people in politics in Taraba State felt was unapproachable or unchallengeable.So, it is really great experience.What are the programmes you intend to introduce to the senate that would influence the participation of women in politicsThe main one that I want to achieve is this 35 per cent participation in governance given to women. The way it is now, in my opinion, is not secured; I want to secure it for women.When you say you are giving women 35 per cent, take for example the senatorial seats, like here in my state, there are three senatorial seats.If truly they want to give woman 35 per cent participation in government activities or in national activities, they should make it mandatory that one of the three senatorial seats should be left for the women, not to be contested by the men. It should be left for only competent women to contest.That way, the 35 per cent would be guaranteed for women. But when you say you are giving women 35 per cent and free form to encourage them, yet you made them contest with people like Nyame, like I did.Everybody knows he was a former governor, even men thought they could not dare contest against anybody that he even sponsored, let alone himself.But I was not discouraged because we are both human beings. I felt whatever programmes he has for the people, I have better ones and if not for my guts, I would have backed out.I am happy that the people have realised that it is not your name or how powerful you are, but what you can offer.So, I am happy that politics in Nigeria is taking a new turn.Do you think it is going to be easy for the women in the National Assembly to convince their male counterparts to legislate bill that would secure the 35 per cent women participation in governanceWell, they have seen that we have started beating them, especially the powerful ones among them. We are going to fight it; we are going to appeal to them and make them understand with us. They know that without us, they cannot function, so they have no choice than to carry us along.The assessment of the National Assembly by Nigerians is not quite impressive, especially with regards to their remunerations. Do you share that impressionNo, I dont; I dont have that impression. You see, people shout without looking into details. The pay package is not too much, because the constituency money I learnt that they give, in my opinion, is not enough to accommodate all the problems of the senators from the various constituencies.I am not saying so because I am going there. Even when people were shouting before I came into the contest, I told them to stop criticising them because they face a lot of problems.I had the experience when my brother was a senator and I knew what he was going through then.That is why I think the money was not too much.But dont you think it would be better if such monies are injected in building or renovating schools, hospitals, etc, which of course would have direct bearings on the people of the various constituenciesIt is part of the use of the constituency allowances. Some of the legislators use such allowances to improve on the lives of people by sinking boreholes, maintaining schools or building classroom blocks, etc.So, it is all part of it, in addition to people coming with personal problems that you have to attend to.Does the high rate of unemployment in the country bother youOf course, that was one of the reasons I came into this contest, because we see our children, our grand children, brothers and sisters just roaming the streets and out of frustrations, going into all kinds of vices.Of course, it is very worrisome. I am very worry about it and by the grace of God, I will do something about it in my way.What are the immediate things you plan to achieve as soon as the National Assembly is inauguratedYou see, this issue of unemployment, I believe government cannot employ every graduate or every person qualified for employment. So, one of the first things I will do is to create awareness and get people to help us.From the allowances that I will get, I will sensitise the government to kind of make available enough skills acquisition centres to accommodate these graduates, to make them useful and assist them with capital.Although the government is doing it, but it is not good enough. I think they should make it better, so that our children would stop roaming the streets.A lot of religious sentiments came to bear during the National Assembly election in Taraba State, but in spite of that, you still emerged victorious. How did you do itI am very much against it. I had said it during my campaigns that we should not allow somebody that is selfish, like Nyame, to be using religious sentiments to divide us, because I learnt that he was going round with the tapes of Jos crisis and telling people that I was the one supplying weapons to the Moslems in Jos.It all propagandas and it is unfortunate that such propagandas came out from Jolly Nyame himself. I was happy that some Christians knew it was that it was a political propaganda. People should not go out to destroy the political system, because if the Moslems were not calm, there would have been a war even before the elections.He was just campaigning in churches, using people to instigate their congregations against me, which was very wrong.I have always told people that God created the Moslems and Christians together and He intended that we should live together, that was why He put us in one state.Religion, I always tell people, is in the mind; it has nothing to do with political leadership. It is a very wrong trend, but I thank God the people of Taraba saw it and refused to take that rubbish. Both Christians and Moslems voted for me and I am happy that he did not succeed.
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