Like Oluremi, Tinubu’s Daughter Cries Foul – We Have Been Abandoned

SAN FRANCISCO, March 10, (THEWILL) – The Iyaloja General of Nigeria, Chief Folasade Tinubu-Ojo, has led market women to protest the non-inclusion of market women in President Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives Congress administration.

Tinubu-Ojo who is also the daughter of the National Leader of the APC, Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu, in Abuja on Thursday, said that the market women yearned to be carried along by Buhari's government as it appears that he has abandoned Nigerian market women who supported him in the last general election.

“I am here this afternoon to represent the market women and men of Nigeria. There have been agitations, not even agitation or allegation; the people believe that the government of the day is not carrying them along as it should be; that they worked round the clock for the party during the campaign, but after the inauguration most of us are not carried along,” she said.

“We only hear in the news that the first lady is doing a programme, this and that. And we just see it in the news, and they wouldn't allow me be; all the complaints come to my table morning and night. And I say okay, enough is enough.

“We even heard that another FCT woman leader is organising another market association named Association of Organised Market People in Abuja, and most of these people are PDP members; they were nowhere to be found when we were working for the party day and night.

“So, now our people are not happy because they need to benefit from where they believe they have the right to, and all we need, all we are crying for, is for the government to give them a sense of belonging and carry them along properly.

“Because I am the daughter of the national leader of APC doesn't mean that I must not represent my people well. I have to represent my people's opinion,” she said as she responding to an enquiry if her father, Tinubu was aware her agitation.

“I am a leader, and as a leader my people are crying foul, and I won't fold my hands and keep quiet because my father is a national leader, it is wrong. I am not mobilising against the party, no. I am solidly behind the party, I have worked for the party before and I will still work for the party tomorrow, but that does not stop me from saying the truth.” ‎

Folashade is not the first Tinubu to accuse the Buhari administration of abandoning the women folk. Tinubu's wife, Oluremi, the senator representing Lagos Central Senatorial District had also accused the APC government of abandoning Nigerian women after using them in the 2015 general election.

Speaking on the floor of the senate on January 26, she said: “In its manifesto, the APC mentioned the need for empowerment programmes for Nigerian women,” she had said.

“Such comprehensive empowerment requires fund which should be included in the budget for implementation. Going through the budget for the federal ministry of women affairs, I discovered that the total allocation to the women ministry is so meagre and I think it would be the least allocation allotted to a ministry.

“I am just laying this case on behalf of the Nigerian women. This is not going well. It's as if we were used during the campaign, and we said this is a government of change. The change mantra is supposed to change things across board.

“What they have allotted to the Nigerian women is not encouraging. When we talk about change, it doesn't mean we are going to dodge and support what is not working.

“So that the women would not just be used for campaign and several promises made to them. On behalf of the Nigerian woman, I am making their case today that this budget is not telling anything and not making any promises.”