One of the fallouts of the 2023 general elections in Nigeria was the abysmal low number of female representation procured from the process across levels of political leadership. At the state level, a paltry 48 females won state assembly seats from a total of 988 seats, a far cry from the previous dispensation where 120 females picked up seats across the states. Out of the 28 states where governorship elections were held, no female scaled the electioneering processes to emerge as governor, save for Rivers, and a handful of others, who fielded female deputy governors.
At the national level, the much avowed affirmative action popularly chorused by the United Nations SDGs made little impact as only three females emerged senators out of 109 seats and a dreary 17 female members of a 360-member House of Representatives. The president and his vice followed a somewhat bizarre tradition that appears to abhor a female president or vice president.
This rather unfortunate development has dire consequences for the political development of Africa’s largest democracy. Nigeria is seeking to set a negative example within the continent if this trend is not halted with all sense of urgency. Then there is the increasing tendency for female political aspirants to lose faith in the electioneering processes leaving the all important task of political leadership to an all men’s affair. This clearly portends ill for a democracy in dire need of nurturing.
It is within this conjecture that the re-election of Lady Blessing Onyeche Onuh, member representing Otukpo/Ohimini, Benue state, at the House of Representatives, comes into proper perspectives. Her robust contributions to the lawmaking process, her triumph at the recent polls against a dominant male hegemony and the sheer strength of her political reckoning distinguishes her as an amazon shinning among men and makes of her a person of national interest.
A glimpse at Lady Onuh’s political trajectory could serve the purpose of appreciating the worth of the emerging colossus. She started her career in public service in 2005 when she got appointed as Special Assistant to the Minister of State for Education, and later to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs with special assignment on the Prerogative of Mercy Desk. In 2012, she was appointed as Secretary for Education and Social Works at the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA), a position she judiciously utilised to put the dignity of women in the FCT as a core priority. Armed with sound educational background and an abundant parentage that exposed her to public policy (her father, Senator David Mark, is a former Senate President and reputable statesman while her husband, an orthopaedic, was also a reputable local government chairman in Benue state), Lady Onuh left indelible footprints in that position of humble beginnings.
A vintage class of female political charisma with a blend of sagacious generosity was to emerge in the hay days of President Muhammadu Buhari’s dispensation. What began as personal tendency to give of one’s relative abundance blossomed into large scale philanthropy that saw the women and youths of Otukpo and several other places aggregating to community groups all in an honourable bid to get the support of the Amazon of virtues. Lady Onuh massively empowered a proportionate number of Idoma women and youths through these groups. From this point, a large followership was inadvertently procured, a base that proved to stand the test of time.
When Lady Onuh indicated interest to represent her people in the House of Representatives during the run up to the 2019 elections, many thought her aspirations were far-fetched, considering the political magnitude of males that prepared to square up against her. A school-of-thought also emerged within the same period, that one could translate popular following to electoral fortunes that would deliver wider empowerment. After it became clear that the apparatchiks of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that she sought to use its platform to represent her people appeared to toe the way of male chauvinism with an obvious tendency to deny her the ticket, she left with her teeming supporters to the All Progressives Grand Alliance, a political party with non-existent spread in Benue state. How the young lady could navigate a campaign season replete with calumny, triumphing through an array of opponents which included the then Benue Assembly Deputy Speaker and PDP candidate, Johnson Egli Ahubi, remains an enduring example of how to forge a new political trajectory. She was to take responsibility as a member of the House of Reps and attracted considerable renown to herself within a short period by her robust contributions to the legislative processes and her massive followership across her immediate constituency.
As Representative Onuh’s popularity in national affairs rose, it reverberated louder in Otukpo/Ohinini federal constituency. Her constituency outreach became a model for many of her colleagues and women and youth groups in their thousands warmed up to her. It was only a matter of time before the Idoma Area Traditional Council bestowed on her the Ofi’anya K’Idoma, translating to “the leader of Idoma women,” another testimonial to her benevolence to her people.
June 2023 saw her being inaugurated to the 10th House of Representatives as a returning member and accorded the responsibility of chairing the House standing committee on Land Transportation, the stage is set again for the amazon to write her name bolder in gold on the pages of Nigeria’s socio-political evolution. There is little or no doubts that Nigeria is undergoing a political and economic transition that requires the patriotism and strength of character of people of the calibre and stature of Lady Onuh. She embodies an example of a strategic partner for the Tinubu dispensation’s Renewed Hope Agenda within the National Assembly or other spheres of national service.
Her brand of people-oriented politics has further endeared her to the people such that her profile towers across the entirety of Benue South Senatorial District. While people beyond her immediate constituency call on her to represent the zone in the senate in the nearest future, it’s a testimonial to her character that she’s being perceived as a viable rallying point for the development of her fatherland and Nigeria as a whole.
For her evident sense of preparedness, her exemplary dedication to nation building and the charisma she puts to use in empowering her constituents, Lady Onuh has proven to be a bastion of hope that should proffer solutions for Nigeria’s present development challenges. She is well on her way to political stardom if she keeps to the standards she’s set for herself and many aspiring leaders of the female gender. Interestingly, she appears ready for her moments.
Adams Abonu, a public affairs consultant and development journalist, writes Asokoro, Abuja.
