Women in Management, Business, and public service (WIMBIZ), a non-profit/non-partisan organisation, has canvassed empowerment of women as a proactive way to ensuring inclusive governance in government.
This was stated at a media parley on the forthcoming 21st annual conference of Wimbiz holding on November 3 and 4, 2022 in Lagos.
The executive director of WIMBIZ, Hansatu Adegbite explained that the theme ‘Firing forward, the future informed’ was curated due to the transition of leadership in the organisation and just as it will be in Nigeria, for over the past 20 years, it has inspired, empowered, and advocated for unconnected women in society at large.
She said, the organisation has directly impacted 200,000 people through the two decades of its existence, saying, Wimbiz has established its roots and is up to date with its intervention in public secondary schools across Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, Niger, Osun, Sokoto, and tertiary institutions to mentor, train, and equip young girls and women, bridging the gap between rural and urban women with a partnership with First Ladies of various states.
The chairperson of the advocacy committee of the group, Mrs. Ronke Onadeko, called for gender inclusivity in the various sector of business and also in governance.
According to her, “As an organisation, we are encouraging more Nigerian companies and organisations to get more women on their boards to make sure our companies are more viable and more productive and more successful.
“Also, we are pushing for more women to be involved in politics, more women to be in the three tiers of government across all the states of Nigeria.”
She stressed further the role Wimbiz is playing to sensitise women who are pivotal when the time to campaign and casting votes in the election period.
Onadeko charged them to exercise their civic responsibility in choosing the right leader while the forum plans to showcase a historical mini-documentary to canvass for their participation in electioneering, polling, and governance.
At the event, the chairperson of the technology subcommittee, Molade Adeniyi, unveiled a user-friendly mobile app developed in partnership with the Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG) for virtual participants willing to join the conference.
The chairperson of the Conference Planning Group, Binta Max Gbinije added that, as part of the measure to curb sexual exploitation experienced by women in business and management services, the big sister programme, which is the arm of the civil and social responsibility programme established for mentoring young women through the ladder to the top, is pivotal to curb the cases of exploitation experienced at their place of work.
