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The women are mostly non-Ogun indigenes.
A group of women in Ogun West senatorial district of Ogun State under the banner of ‘Yewa Wives in Diaspora’ said on Saturday that they would contest for key positions in the next political dispensation in the state.
The women’s position was made known at the inauguration of the association held at Iwe-Iroyin Press Centre, Abeokuta. The women argued that by virtue of marriage they were qualified for political offices at the zonal as well as state level.
The coordinator of the association, Pat Olaleye, in her address to the gathering, comprising of hundreds of the Yewa wives, said, “The fact that we are married to Yewa sons has compelled us to renounce our very own tribal identity because marriage has nationalised us and so we are also Yewa daughters.”
She said the development of Yewaland should therefore be of paramount interest to them.
“Particularly those areas and groups of people that require our developmental efforts. A lot still needs to be done in the areas of child abuse, mass literacy and of course, the condition of our women in our local towns and villages is not encouraging.”
On politics, the women declared, “Come 2015, we intend to encourage ourselves, contest for offices and use such offices to attract genuine development for our people in Yewaland,” she said.
“We are also using this medium to appeal to people in authority in our local governments, the State and all other government boards and parastatals that Yewa wives should also be considered for appointments else, we would consider it as discrimination basically because majority of us are possibly not Yorubas by tribe.”
Mrs. Olaleye traced the formation of the association to United Kingdom in 2009 by Joy Fatosin. She said that since inception the body had been trying frantically to establish its existence at home. She disclosed that the main intention for the establishment was to use it as a single voice to attract development to Ogun State.
The coordinator also rolled out some of the planned programmes of the association including: empowerment programme to train 20,000 women from the five local governments of Yewaland on skill acquisition, free vocational training and two weeks free medical treatment in conjunction with the U.K. chapter.
Awards of excellence were handed out to “eight worthy ambassadors of Yewaland” at the inauguration.
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