Groups defend first Sokoto female ministerial nominee

October 18, 2015 – More groups are defending the nomination of Aisha Abubakar as the first female ministerial nominee from Sokoto State against campaigns from some politicians in the state.

Apart from being a technocrat, international banker and senior manager in a financial institution, she is a descendant of Sheik Usman Danfodio, the Islamic reformer.

An immediate past Governor and a serving legislator has been accused of being the mastermind of some of the “frivolous” petitions filed against Aisha Abubakar.

A group describing itself as “The Concerned Sokoto People” declared that it uncharitable for the top politician to embark upon such an act against his party woman.

“We will sadly add that it is a grave disservice to Nigerians, to President Muhammadu Buhari, to the APC and to Sokoto people, that it is only from Sokoto State, that an APC chieftain, a defacto leader will sponsor, in whatever guise, a frivolous petition challenging the carefully selected nomination of a minister from his own state by his own President.

“President Buhari has made it clear that he and he alone will be responsible on who serves in his government. All APC leaders across the country have accepted this position and have supported the president to succeed so that this country, our country, can move forward.

While lauding President Buhari’s decision to appoint Aisha Abubakar as the first female minister representing Sokoto state, the group described the nominee as a role model to the rising intellectual women who struggled daily on gender equality in the predominantly conservative Northern state of Sokoto.

“She is not only an international banker and top manager of human and material resources, she has dedicated herself as a staff in National and regional institutions to the promotion of developmental issues that target the low and middle income earners in Nigeria and Africa” the group explained”, the group observed.

Another group, “Concerned Stakeholders for Good Governance”, has dismissed issues raised against the ministerial nominee for Sokoto State, Miss Aisha Abubakar, saying they are not tenable.

The forum described as worrisome, the move by interest groups discriminating against President Buhari’s choice of a ministerial nominee based on gender, pointing out that women played a critical role in the president’s emergence just as President Buhari.

The forum argued that having served in various organisations in the public service with over 20 years’ experience in banking and investment, rural enterprise development and microcredit administration, international development, policy analysis and business support, she was adequately qualified, and that there is no legal requirement under any Nigerian law that a person must be a member of a political party before they can be appointed Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria or any other executive position and it is in this regard that the appointment of Abubakar has in no way contravened any legal provision as far as party membership is concerned.

Aisha is daughter of ex-Super permanent secretary and Finance Minister Alhaji Abubakar Alhaji and current Sardauna of Sokoto and heir to the sultanate throne which makes Aisha a 7th generation descendant of Sheikh Usman Danfodio, the 18th century founder of the Sokoto Caliphate. Also from from the maternal side, Aishat is said to be the granddaughter of his eminence, Sultan Ibrahim Dasuki, the 18th Sultan of Sokoto.