Women Affairs Minister Pauline Tallen says Nigeria’s unending insecurity can be blamed on the “sheer” neglect of women in leadership and policymaking positions.

Mrs Tallen, who spoke during a stakeholders’ meeting on the network of policymakers to support reconciliation, peace and security on Tuesday in Abuja, said women possessed the necessary capabilities to end the ongoing insecurity ravaging the country.

“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.

“Ignoring who may participate on the decision table is causing the problem we are facing,” she said.

Mrs Tallen added that the policymakers must learn to tackle the problems by changing strategy, and went further to say that Nigeria’s problem was the absence of love.

“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.

She said Nigerians must stop blaming President Muhammadu Buhari and expecting that he performs magic. “We are all involved in protecting Nigeria, but we keep going around and around without telling ourselves the truth.”

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Oyeama, also made a case to put more women in leadership positions, stating that “I believe that women can play key roles when it comes to curbing insecurity in Nigeria.” 

(NAN)