El-Rufai assures women of Kaduna State of unflinching commitment to supporting them

Remarks by Malam Nasir El-Rufai, Governor of Kaduna State, at the 4th Kaduna Women Economic Empowerment Summit, held at the Umaru Yar’Adua Hall, Kaduna, on Wednesday, 30th October 2019.

PROTOCOLS

I am delighted to join you, the great women of our state, at the fourth Kaduna State Women Economic Empowerment Summit. It should be clear to everyone by now that this Kaduna State Government is committed to Putting People First. Central to this is placing the concerns and interests of the many at the heart of government policies and programmes. It involves determined efforts at making lives better by investing in the social sector, fixing schools and hospitals, expanding access to ante-natal care and free paediatric services.
Therefore, as we seek progressive attainments for our society, we must enable the vigorous participation of everyone who lives in it. That includes recognising, supporting and promoting women to make their contributions to society. Our drive to promote equality of opportunity cannot succeed if it does not embrace women at the various stages of life. Half of our population is women, and the other half were born and nurtured by women. Any society that fails to utilise the awesome capability, capacity and talent of women is ignoring at least half of its human capital. It is akin to clapping with one hand. Why should we restrict our own potentials by using only one hand when the task of comprehensive development requires two?
We are committed to women because we believe in a fair and progressive society. We signalled this quite early, appointing five women into the State Executive Council in our first term. We have appointed three Attorneys-General since 2015, and they are all women, as are the two Heads of Service in the same period.
As you allknow,we went a step further last year by selecting Dr. Hadiza Sabuwa Balarabe as my running-mate in the 2019 elections. Once again, I thank the people of Kaduna State for embracing our ticket and giving us the first elected female Deputy Governor in the heart of the north of Nigeria.
Dr. Hadiza Balarabe has taken to the job with admirable energy, commitment and passion. She performs her role as Deputy Governor with calmness, competence and dedication, and has led our team brilliantly as Acting Governor whenever I am out of the country. She was in charge as our team prepared the draft 2020 budget and you all watched her make history by presenting it with composure and assurance to the Kaduna State House of Assembly.
Dr. Hadiza Balarabe has represented the State in various engagements of the National Economic Council, the Governors’ Forum and the like, where she has impressed everyone with her intelligence, grasp of issues and knowledge about our policies and programmes. We are very proud of Dr. Hadiza Balarabe, and we wish her more success.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I must add that there are four women out of the 13 commissioners that we have so far appointed to the second term government. We have identified another competent woman to be our health commissioner, and this will be made public as soon as the nomination reaches the State House of Assembly. We will continue to appoint women to head many key agencies to prepare the next generation of public servants in our state.
The quality of the women in our government shows that we are not making token appointments. Rather, we are demonstrating that competence is a human attribute across both genders, and that we can be deliberate about supporting historically-neglected segments of our society to flower. Our hope is that our young girls in Kaduna will see these women as role models and get similarly inspired.
Our young girls also know that it is in their girl schools that we began the pilot programme involving giving students 15,000 computer tablets containing instructional materials. To further encourage girls, we declared education free for them till the end of senior secondary school. Boys who hitherto enjoyed free education only to the end of junior secondary will also have it free to the end of senior secondary school from 2020, by the Grace of God.
In domesticating the Child Rights Act by passing the Child Welfare and Protection Law, and the Street Hawking and Begging (Prohibition) Law, this government further underlined its commitment to social welfare and the protection of the poor and the vulnerable. We will be stepping up implementation of these laws and others to protect our children, particularly girls and other vulnerable groups, by upholding and enforcing their rights to free education affordable healthcare and a future of hope and opportunity.
The institutional reforms undertaken this year included the establishment of the Ministry of Human Services and Social Development. The ministry is serving women, but its mandate extends to being the champion and monitor of the implementation of our governance agenda to promote equality of opportunity for all, with special focus on all vulnerable and once-neglected groups.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I am delighted that the Kaduna State Women Empowerment Fund (KADSWEF) is achieving its purpose of supporting women entrepreneurs. As expected, the beneficiaries of the first batch are paying back, demonstrating remarkable probity and guaranteeing that more women can benefit. We are happy to expand the fund to N800m in 2020 and promise to further raise it to N1 billion annually from 2021, by the Grace of God.
I assure the women of Kaduna State of our unflinching commitment to supporting them today, tomorrow and always. It is my pleasure to declare open the 2019 women economic empowerment summit and to wish you fruitful deliberations.
God Bless our resilient and hardworking women of Kaduna State. God Bless our Kaduna State. God Bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Thank you for listening.