The wife of Kaduna Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has been elected Chairperson of the Northern Governors Wives’ Forum (NGWF).

Hadiza Isma El-Rufai was unanimously elected for a two-year tenure and will take over from Amina Bello, wife of Niger Governor Abubakar Bello.

The new executive members were elected on Monday, June 29, in Abuja.

Olufolake Abdulrazaq (Kwara) was elected the Vice-Chairperson, while Anna Ishaku (Taraba) was elected Secretary. Mariya Tambuwal (Sokoto) is the Welfare Officer, Asma’u Yahaya (Gombe) emerged Treasurer, and Regina Lalong (Plateau) was elected Public Relations Officer.

Calling for increased participation of women in politics, the forum leader demanded that women be given adequate opportunities to contribute to nation-building.

“Would you ever have thought that Nigeria would be like that with all the educated women?

“We have the vocal women and you know all the women that have paved way before like Mrs Ransome Kuti and at this age we are still at this level.

“I think what we should do is to keep mounting pressure so that they would legislate for a certain percentage of seats to be reserved for women.

“This is because we cannot compete equally with the men and we all know this has a lot to do with financial strength and the women are not strong financially.

“It will be a great help if the legislators at the federal and state levels agree to reserve a certain number of seats for women,’’ el-Rufai said.