The Nigerian President President Muhammadu Buhari, has recently said that his government will increase budgetary allocations to projects by the various federal ministries, agencies and departments specifically targeted at improving the lives of women.
While speaking in Addis Ababa after the just concluded 26th Summit of the Assembly of Heads of State and Governments of the African Union (AU), Buhari assured that his administration would continue to guarantee the economic rights of women.
Buhari told the AU leaders that his administration had demonstrated its commitment to the women’s rights by appointing women of proven integrity to key positions in cabinet.
He said, “We have increased the budgetary allocation of Ministries that have direct bearing on the lives of women particularly health and education, with greater emphasis on girl-child education. As you all know, the terrible activities of the Boko Haram Sect led to destruction of thousands of lives and property in the North Eastern part of Nigeria displacing millions from their respective homes, most of whom were women and children and are now at various IDP Camps across the country”.
The President added that “In order to fully restore and protect their rights, government is in the process of massive rehabilitation, reconstruction and resettlement of the affected victims in the North Eastern part of the country with the ultimate goal of restoring normalcy in full to that region as well as improving the well-being of the affected persons”.
Welcoming the African Union’s decision to declare 2016 as the “The Year of Human Rights in Africa with Special focus on the Rights of Women”, Buhari also told the leaders that Nigeria had amply demonstrated her commitment to issues relating to rights of women by upholding several human rights treaties and conventions specifically targeted at women while pointing that his government was embarking on massive employment programmes that would promote small and medium Scale Enterprises in order to provide succor to the nation’s teeming women and youth populations.
