Senator Ireti Kingibe, representing the Federal Capital Territory, has received criticism from rural women and female farmers for supposedly leaving them after voting for her.
The women stated they had gotten no empowerment or recognition from Kingibe.
Kingibe defended herself, saying:
“For the record, I am the only woman elected in the FCT. Now, there’s this misconception as to what everybody defines what governance is. To me, it is bringing the most to the people. I have been a senator for a year and a half, I am primarily a legislator. I have bills waiting to be passed, creating the nursing and midwifery school In Gwagwalada, I have a maternal free healthcare for women. I have a few of such bills still pending.
“But notwithstanding, since I have been a senator, I have empowered and I have everything on record. I have empowered 10,000 people. Now, it is not possible, FCT has 4 to 5 million people and for me to personally see everybody that voted for me.
“I am also building a 50-bed hospital, I am putting an ICT center in Gwagwalada and Nyanya, I paid with my personal money 2,000 JAMB forms for free. So, at the end of the day, governance means to me, bringing things for the general good and not for the individual.
“The truth is that being a woman in the National Assembly is very, very, very hard. So, I have to lobby for everything. When I leave here, I will go to the National Assembly, sign in and then go from ministry to ministry so that all those things that don’t get attention by the executive, I can slip them into the budget from lobbying different ministers to put it in their budget.
“I have also renovated with my personal money and allowance the ante-natal center in Gwagwalada teaching hospital. Any of you can go and verify all these things.
“So, I’m sorry, yes women complain, I haven’t come to them one by one; it is not possible. It is either I do that and then you don’t get anything else. So that is my frustration and I want women to understand that you are voting for other women so that our general lives will improve not because she is going to come and meet you personally.”
