ANWBN: 2024 AGM, We must include women in nation building-Ogun State First Lady

By allcitynews.ng

The First Lady of Ogun State, Her Excellency, Mrs Bamidele Abiodun has called for more inclusion of women in governance to keep the actualise the goal of industrialisation.

Just as stakeholders called for more empowerment in practical tool by going into training and retraining and adopt the digitalisation education to avoid going extinction as some businesses went down because they failed to scale up to stay alive.

Speaking in the ongoing Association of Nigeria Women Business Network (ANWBN), Mrs Abiodun, commended Mrs Remi Tinubu for empowerment of women.

According to her, empowerment of women has long been recognised as essential to sustainable development. It is why the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), place great emphasis on women’s empowerment, gender equality and poverty alleviation. SDG 5 is dedicated to achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls, while SDG seeks to end poverty in all its forms.

According to her, “These goals are not just global aspirations, but a call to action that directly impacts each one of us. As women entrepreneurs, we are pivotal in ensuring that our economy grows, and I am proud to see that increasingly women are receiving the support they need to start and to run small businesses.

“Just about a month ago., the First Lady of the Federation of Nigeria, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, is doing a lot for women.

“I have not seen a First Lady like her, because she is so passionate about helping people at the grassroots level. And she has employed people like us, the First Ladies in all the states, to help her to disseminate the help that she wants to give to women at the grassroots level. Last month, she gave each one of us, 36 First Ladies, N50 million each.”

According to Mrs Abiodun who chairperson of the Summit 2024, Mrs Tinubu told us to empower 1,000 petty traders with N50,000 each. Because you find that to some of these petty traders, getting N20,000 will make a difference to their businesses. So we empowered 1,000 petty traders with N50,000 each. As for women farmers, they were given N500,000 to assist their farming.

And before that, she also gave us a whole trailer of rice each. We don’t, First Ladies don’t really get these privileges to be able to distribute things.

“For her concern though we don’t have offices officially. But she’s helped us to help people at the grassroots. And we all know that there’s hunger in the land. She gave us some money at one point. She asked us to give 100 elderly people N100,000 each. Then she also gave us some money to give to 100 people living with disabilities, N100,000 each, for each state.

Then she gave us N10 million and asked us to empower 20 female farmers, N500,000 each, to help them to upscale their farming businesses. Now, the empowerment of women has long been recognized as an essential to sustainable development. That is why, I’m repeating this, is why the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, SDG, places great emphasis on women’s empowerment, gender equality, and poverty alleviation.

“I commend the Association of Women Business Network, ANWBN, and its leadership for the great work that they are doing. Thank you very much for inviting me to join you here today. And let us commit to empowering more women, equipping them with the skills they need, and creating environments that foster growth, collaboration, and success.”

Likewise, in her address the keynote speaker, Mrs Hansatu Adegbite charged women to brace up with digitalisation of their work to avoid being into extinction.

Adegbite, who is the chairperson summit committee 2024, said, “to sustain and revive dead local businesses that had gone into extinction based on their failure to have focused on the future like today. It is no longer business as usual, we must be technological driven.”

Adegbite charged the participants to embrace the emergence of technology, noting that as Nigeria has over 70 per cent out of the 200m Nigerians, making that the country has about 150 million youths, people should scale up for the upcoming generation as use of digitalisation keep bringing new innovation.

In her welcome address, the National Coordinator of.the 2024, Mrs Ajala Angela, while speaking on the theme 2024 Summit, Future-Ready Entrepreneurs:Skill-Up to Scale-Up, taking place in Lagos, in the 2024 AGM, from Wednesday, called for women to embrace technological innovation as way to checkmate against becoming irrelevance.

ANWBN as a premier coalition of over 75 association of Nigerian Women Business Network with spreads having five million women across the country, was established to encouraging, improving and empowering sustainable entrepreneurial development among Nigerian Women through research, advocacy, policy reforms and capacity building initiatives.”

According to Ajala, “ANWBN is more than just alliance of associations, it is a testament to the strength, unity, resilience and unwavering commitment of women that have dedicated their lives to shaping a brighter future. It is a testament to the power of collaboration and shared purpose.

“We must remember that scaling up requires more than passion, it demands knowledge, expertise and the continuous pursuit of growth. It requires building strong networks and forging partnership that will enable us to transcend limitations. We must also embrace technology, innovation and adaptability, as these are no longer optional tools but essential elements of our future success.

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