Women Affairs Minister Pauline Tallen says the insecurity faced in the country has not been successfully addressed because of “sheer” neglect of women in leadership and policy making.
Tallen said this during a stakeholders’ meeting on the network of policymakers to support reconciliation, peace and security on Tuesday in Abuja.
Tallen said that women possessed the necessary capabilities to end the ongoing insecurity menace ravaging the nation.
“Women also play a critical role in the home, in society and even in conflict resolution.
“Any successful mediation that will be successful and bring about meaningful peace, women must be involved, and when they are involved, we always get better results.
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“Ignoring who may participate on the decision table is what is causing the problem we are facing.
“We must learn to admit and to address some of these security problems by looking inwardly and changing our strategy,” she said.
Tallen added that the problem of Nigeria is the absence of love.
“We should learn God’s love because God loves this nation beyond one’s imagination.
“If not for God, we wouldn’t be sitting here today; God has shown us so much love, all we need to do is reciprocate and love one another and be sincere.
“If we are sincere to ourselves, then by now we should have found a solution to our security problem; but there is no sincerity and we must go back to the drawing board,’’ she said.
According to Tallen, President Muhammad Buhari is not a magician and he alone cannot protect Nigeria.
“We are all involved in protecting Nigeria but we keep going around and around without telling ourselves the truth.’’
The Minister of Foreign Affair, Mr Geoffrey Oyeama, while commending the minister of women affairs, said that a simple solution to the challenges faced in Nigeria regarding conflict was to put more women in leadership positions.
“If we do this we will find out that we have a solution to a lot of these problems of insecurity.
“We’ve been trying with the men for a long time, why don’t we try something different.
“We all know that women are elements and source of love; it’s in their DNA.
“I believe that women can play key roles when it comes to curbing insecurity in Nigeria,’’ Onyeama added. (NAN)