A member of the Ekiti State House of Assembly, Honourable Adeoye Aribasoye, has described the “Women Leader Award of the Year” conferred on the state First Lady, Erelu Bisi Fayemi, as an honour well deserved.
Aribasoye, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), said Mrs Fayemi had contributed immensely to the growth, development and political emancipation of women globally.
The lawmaker, representing Ikole Constituency 2, added that the governor’s wife deserved any honour that has nexus with women or gender equality-driven.
Mrs Fayemi, who is the chairperson of the Nigeria Governors’ Wives Forum, was last week named the “Women Leader of the Year”, at the inaugural International Women’s Day Awards Gala.
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The event was jointly hosted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), UN Women, European Union, British High Commission and the Embassies of the United States of America, Germany and France, to commemorate the International Women’s Month.
Congratulating the First Lady on the feat, Aribasoye, said the award would further spur her to contribute more to the upliftment of women in Ekiti, Nigeria and globally.
He said the African Women Development Fund (AWDF), which Mrs Fayemi co-founded with other respectable gender promoters and feminists, had given solace to over 800,000 women across 42 countries in Africa, making it a leading women empowerment body in the continent.
At the homefront, Aribasoye said Ekiti people won’t forget the women empowerment being championed by Mrs Fayemi through advocacy for more women representations at various levels of governments, party levels to combat poverty in their ranks.
“The AWDF, co-founded by Mrs Fayemi, has become one instrument being used to promote women and their virtues in the African Continent.
“Many gender activists had risen to the top with many empowered to know their rights and rescued them from vicious poverty afflicting them.
“At the homefront of Ekiti, thousands of women, had benefited from Mrs Fayemi’s multifarious and multi-approached empowerment programmes in the facets of money for traders, food banks and village kitchens for the elderly.
“Ekiti people can’t forget how Mrs Fayemi fought hard to ensure that more women are involved in politics. Before Governor Kayode Fayemi came in 2010, women had been relegated in Ekiti politics.
“But with Mrs Fayemi taking up the battle, at least, women are now recognised by being given slots as House of Assembly members, commissioners, special advisers, senior special assistants and even National Assembly members.
“Through her efforts and that of the leadership of APC in Ekiti, the party had thrown up a woman as the party’s deputy governorship candidate, Mrs Monisade Afuye, for the June 18 governorship poll in our dear state.
“These were aside different intervention programmes being midwifed by Mrs Fayemi like fight against female genital mutilation, building of referral home for rape victims, food and money distribution to widows and seminars for women, so that they can know their rights .
“Mrs Fayemi also ensured the sponsorship of various laws to protect female gender like Gender-Based Violence Prohibition Law, Child’s Rights Law, Equal Opportunities law that had bolstered women’s chances of survival in the state and bulwark against molestations and slavery.
“So, considering all these lofty achievements, one could decipher that the latest award and others preceding it were honours well deserved for our own mother-general, Erelu Bisi Fayemi.
“On behalf of myself and family, I congratulate our quintessential mother and leader, Erelu Bisi Fayemi for this honour and I pray that God shall continue to give her the enablement to contribute more to serving humanity,” Aribasoye said.
