Tallen made this known in a statement in Abuja.

She said her decision was to enable her focus on the foundation laid towards the advancement and realisation of gender equality in leadership positions in the country.

“With profound gratitude and great humility, I have decided to voluntarily step down from the Senatorial race sequel to the yearnings of Women and other well meaning Nigerians who see the need for a strong voice for Women at the Senate having consulted widely with my family, well-wishers and supporters conscious of the role I play for Women in Nigeria today.

“So, to all Nigerian Women and young girls who have raised concerns as to what next, rest assured that I, Dame Pauline K. Tallen, OFR, KSG have not submitted any resignation letter.

“And therefore, it is my decision not to go ahead with this request but carry on as the Minister of Women Affairs,” she said.

According to her, President Buhari’s commitment to the advancement of Women, necessitated the need for her to continue as the minister, which will aide in addressing challenges affecting women and children.

“Our nation has a long standing commitment in overcoming the challenges that inhibit women from bringing about positive changes and the requisite impacts when given a place at the table of decision making.

“My appointment as the Minister of Women Affairs is indicative of this progress and I cannot lose sight of this opportunity,” she said.

The minister, therefore expressed her appreciation to the wife of the president, Dr Aisha Buhari, her constituency and all well-wishers for their continuous support.

On May 8, Tallen announced that she would be vying for the Plateau South Senatorial seat in the 2023 general elections.

Plateau South Senatorial District covers six local government areas namely, Langtang North, Langtang South, Mikang, Qua’anpan, Shendam, and Wase.

Buhari had on Thursday, issued a directive to all appointees seeking nomination ahead of the APC primaries to resign on or before May 16.

The directive followed the decision of the Court of Appeal to dismiss a suit that challenged section 84(12) of the Electoral Act, which prohibits appointees from participating in a convention as a delegate or nominee.

Source: NAN

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She expressed happiness that the agency had lived up to its billing concerning the health of women and children across the world.

She spoke during a courtesy call by officials of UNFPA led by Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director UNFPA, Dr. Natalia Kanem, on Thursday at the State House, Abuja.

Mrs. Buhari addressed UNFPA as worthy partners for sharing in the strategic vision of Future Assured in advancing the agenda of Reproductive, Maternal, Neonatal, Child, Adolescent Health and Nutrition (RMNCAH+N).

“With this support,” she said, “we have in the past 6 years achieved numerous successes, especially in bridging some of the gaps limiting the delivery of comprehensive and quality RMNCAH+N services.”

She made reference to the recent celebration of the 6th anniversary of Future Assured where successes, challenges, and lessons learnt were enumerated as part of an accountability obligation.

Although much has been achieved, she said, more needed to be done.

Mrs. Buhari also informed the United Nations delegation of her recent election as President of African First Ladies Peace Mission, AFLPM, which, she said, comes with the greater responsibility of leading African First Ladies to contribute to peace and development in the continent.

She called for the support of the international community in this regard.

Earlier, the Executive Director, Dr. Natalia Kanem, said she was in Nigeria as part of the celebration of the annual 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, saying the figures indicated “we are not out of the woods yet, but it is encouraging to see that the death rates are reduced and moving downwards.”

She commended the First Lady for cascading her programmes through the states’ First Ladies to reach the grassroots.

The Executive Director was accompanied by the Regional Director of UNFPA, Dr. Argentina Matavel, and Nigeria Country Representative, Dr. Ulla Mueller.

The meeting was also attended by the Minister of Women Affairs, Dame Pauline Tallen.

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Those who took time to see the video where 16-year-old Barakat Melojuekun and her father, Adesola, pleaded with Nigerians to forget the allegation of sexual harassment levelled against the Ogun State Commissioner for Environment, Abiodun Abdul Balogun, would notice a common phrase in their speeches.  Both father and daughter said they just realised “few misconceptions and misunderstanding” and would therefore “want Nigerians to please allow this matter to rest.”

For the benefit of those who didn’t see the video, let me just recap. After introducing herself, Barakat said: “You can recall that I was the young lady in a viral video about sexual harassment by commissioner for environment in Ogun State. I am using this opportunity to thank all Nigerians that show their love and support towards the matter and I want you to know that there were few misconceptions and misunderstanding between I and the commissioner. And I now want to use this opportunity to appeal to Nigerians to please allow this matter to rest. Thanks.”

Similarly, her father said: “Afternoon Nigerians.  I am Adesola….the biological father to…Barakat who is in the news recently about sexual harassment between her and the current serving commissioner for environment in Ogun State in person of Honourable Abiodun Abdul Balogun.  I want to thank the media for their doggedness and aggressive support to make sure that justice prevailed.

For me, this is a case that our Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen, ought to have shown more than a passing interest in if we are really serious about fighting the scourge of rape and sexual assault in our country.

“I am using this opportunity as well to thank the international community and well-meaning Nigerians and all Ogun State indigenes that showed their love and encouragement to this matter and sincerely I discovered that there were few misconceptions and misunderstanding along the line between my daughter and the honourable commissioner.  And having discovered this, I deem it fit to come to the public and inform Nigerians and the international community that this matter should be allowed to be laid to rest.”

Curiously, the picture painted in this latest video is completely different from the initial story that Barakat told the public a few days back. Then, she had vividly explained in detail how she was lured into the Ogun commissioner’s house through her uncle and what transpired in the bedroom. Her words:  “He (her uncle) told my grandmother that someone needed a computer operator and asked me to dress corporately so he could take me there. He then took me to the commissioner’s house and asked me to wait at the gate.

“By the time I got inside, I saw someone who claimed to be the aide of the commissioner who had been calling me. He said I should follow him to where the computer was and I did. Immediately the commissioner came into the room, his aide left and he locked the door and kept the key in his pocket. He asked for my school and class and I told him I was in SS3.

“The commissioner then asked if I was interested in any business and I said no. He asked if I had New Year clothes and I said yes. He kept asking me what I needed and I told him nothing. He asked if I would collect a cash gift from him and I said I would. He then started pushing me onto the bed and pressing my breasts while chanting incantations. So I started shouting on top of my voice.

“He jumped off me and brought out the key from his pocket. He offered me N2, 000 but I rejected it. He locked the door again and threatened not to let me go until I collect the money. I collected it and he pushed me out of the room.”

In what seems to be a further proof that Barakat probably had a clear perception of what she just went through, she reported the incident to her parents who in turn reported the case at the police station. The police equally sent a formal letter of invitation to the commissioner on January 1, 2021 and asked him to appear at the station before 1 p.m. on the same day.

So which part of the story was misconstrued? And what constitutes the few misconceptions and misunderstanding in all of these accounts? We need to know.  I know that I am through this article, doing the exact opposite of what Barakat and her father asked for. But I am sorry we cannot all afford to keep quiet, gloss over this and pretend as if it never happened. Here are a few reasons why we cannot afford to allow this matter to be laid to rest.  Rape and sexual harassment are major societal maladies in Nigeria. Unfortunately, despite this, conviction rates have been very low, suggesting a serious systemic problem. A study says one in four girls and women will experience rape and/or sexual assault in Nigeria before the age of 18.  Another says one in every three girls would have experienced at least one form of sexual abuse by the time they reach 25 years. And according to the United Nations, there are fewer than 80 total recorded rape convictions in Nigeria.

Aside this, about two million Nigerians (mainly women and girls) are said to be raped every year.  A poll conducted by NOIPOLLS in July 2019, revealed that most Nigerians (85%) believe that there is a high prevalence of rape in the country. According to the report, “about 3 in 10 Nigerians (26 per cent) know someone who has been raped in the past and the rape victims were particularly minors and young adults aged between 1 – 15 years (72 per cent) and 16 – 25 years (24 per cent) respectively.

Allowing this window of misconception and misunderstanding to stand as it is, is like either providing armour for the rich and the elite in our society to easily wriggle out of criminal proceedings against them or allowing the ordinary Nigerians to easily lie against their leaders at will.  We certainly can’t afford to live with any of these scenarios!

One can hardly doubt these statistics. Personally, most Nigerian females that I have interacted with have at one time or the other, experienced one form of sexual harassment or the other growing up. You need to be where girls talk (or should I say women) to understand some of these things. Those who are fortunate to be raised in homes where they are well shielded from predators will tell you how they are either harassed in schools or work places. I once shared my story of sexual harassment as a student at the University of Lagos. We have a serious problem at hand and we can’t pretend about it.  For me, this is a case that our Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen, ought to have shown more than a passing interest in if we are really serious about fighting the scourge of rape and sexual assault in our country.  Some of us can still remember the brutal rape and murder of Grace Oshiagwu, a student of Oke -Ogun Polytechnic in Saki, Oyo State; that of 100-level student of the University of Benin, Uwaila Omozuwa;  Barakat Bello, who was raped and killed in her home;  and that of a 12-year-old girl who was raped by 11 men in Jigawa, northern Nigeria. This is a country where women and girls are easily captured and turned into sex slaves and violated at will. For example, on May 7, 2013, insurgents seized four women and eight children from a police barrack in Bama in Borno State. So, how can we keep quiet just because a victim and her father are telling us to do so? This story has too many loose ends that need to be tied up.

The public has a right to know the specific areas of misconceptions and misunderstanding. More so when the sudden misconception script came to fore shortly after Ogun State suspended the accused commissioner. Right or wrong, the public may conclude that it is either Barakat’s life is being threatened or that her father has been handsomely settled by the politician. None of these postulations should be allowed to stand in a normal society.

We need to strengthen our criminal and justice system. In fairness to the police, they have played their role well in this matter. They were swift in inviting the commissioner to their station and they have also said that they would continue with their investigations in spite of the new turn of events. However, the police would have to do a thorough investigation to get anything meaningful on this matter. As it is, this case is as good as dead except the police come to our rescue. The police have to investigate the reason behind the sudden new song from Barakat and her father.  Could it be that both father and daughter had wanted to discredit an honourable commissioner for pecuniary gains? We need to know. If that is the case, justice must prevail and appropriate punishment meted out to the offenders because the law should protect everybody – the strong and the weak alike.

 One of the major findings of  a yet to be published  research study on class representation in crime reports in Nigerian media, is that the rich and  the elite in Nigeria do a lot of things  to escape prosecution for their crimes. We need to know if the Ogun State commissioner for environment has done anything to get himself off the hook. There are too many questions begging for answers, hence, the reason why we cannot allow this matter “to be laid to rest.”

This is no curse; many Nigerians will still come up with rape allegations either now or in future. We want to be able to take them seriously. So, we should get to the bottom of this matter. Allowing this window of misconception and misunderstanding to stand as it is, is like either providing armour for the rich and the elite in our society to easily wriggle out of criminal proceedings against them or allowing the ordinary Nigerians to easily lie against their leaders at will.  We certainly can’t afford to live with any of these scenarios!

*Olabisi Deji-Folutile is the Editor-in-Chief, Franktalknow.com and member, Nigerian Guild of Editors. Email: bisideji@yahoo.co.uk

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The minister made this known on her Twitter handle on Sunday.

Tallen ‘s tweets read: “Following interaction with individuals that later show asymptomatic signs of COVID19, I was advised by my medical team to undergo the test and self isolate for observation over the past few days.

“Currently, I am asymptomatic and have gone into isolation for the period of treatment. Please keep me in your prayers and I implore you all stay safe and observe all COVID19 protocols as we grapple with this pandemic.

“I urge you all to please take responsibility for yourselves and family in order to protect our dear country even more at this time.”

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Lawan made the pledge in a speech after he was presented with an award of HeForShe by a group of women led by the Minister of Women Affairs, Dame Pauline Tallen in Abuja.

He said, “I believe we should give our women all the opportunities available for them to participate not only in governance but in all spheres of life, because governance is limited.

“The majority of Nigerians are women. It is not 50‐50, I think it is about 48‐52, and you need to unleash such powerful group into your national development. You must have a conscious agenda and plan to get the best of this lot, and I believe we can’t wait any more.

“We should be in a hurry, even though in a hurry we must be very meticulous in ensuring that we get every issue properly addressed to support our women.”

The Senate President said having understood the importance of women empowerment, something must be done to achieve the desired results, and expressed his readiness to support President Muhammadu Buhari in that regard.

“I am going to support Mr. President fully, and in the legislature here we will play our part and role very well to ensure that we give our women the desired tonic, the support they required to make them participate in governance, in politics, in business, in everything,” he said.

Lawan said there were not enough women as role models particularly in the northern part of the country and called for more efforts to provide girl-child education for women to reach their desired level of education and contribute in whatever their potentials will allow them.

According to him, “the fact remains that we have to encourage those we work with to ensure that they provide the leadership that will be exemplary to others who are outside, to be role models, that is what we lack.

“All over the country we have that deficit, but we have it more in northern part of the country. Personally, I believe a girl should be given opportunity to go to any level of education. If she wants to read up to PhD so be it.”

Lawan said in addition to empowerment there was need for concerted efforts to protect women and girls, particularly from sexual predators and called for stiffer penalties for convicted rapists.

“Last year the incident of rape was rampant but thank God it is coming down and I believe that the consequences on anyone involved in rape incident must be extremely punitive and prohibitive.

“Because if you educate or empower a girl it is like you educate the nation. The reverse is also the case. If you destroy one it is like destroying the nation.

“So for anyone to engage in destroying the life of innocent, sometimes even little babies, I didn’t know if death sentence will not be the kind of necessary punishment for this kind of a thing.

“Our laws must be extremely stiff to protect our women and girls from this kind of paedophile behaviour and attitude to life.”

Earlier in her remark, Dame Pallen Tallen said the HeForShe was a global initiative and a solidarity movement for gender equality between men and women.

The initiative, she said was to engage men and boys as advocates and agents of change in the efforts to achieve gender equality and women empowerment.

The award to the Senate President, she said, was in recognition of his support to women issues and urged the Senate to amend the 1999 constitution to repeal discriminatory laws that hindered the realisation of gender equality and women advancement.

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That came as the Kwara State House of Assembly on Tuesday commenced the screening of the state’s commissioner-nominees, with six of them appearing, fielded questions from the lawmakers for at least six hours.

Those who appeared on Tuesday were Ayinla Jawondo Salman (Asa); Suleiman Rotimi Iliasu (Moro); Aliyu Mohammed Saifudeen (Kaiama); Afolabi Oshatimehin Adenike Harriet (Ifelodun); Sa’adatu Modibbo Kawu (Ilorin South); and Dr Raji Razaq (Ekiti).

In a letter to the Governor, Pauline said Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq had proven to be the most gender-friendly leader so far, calling on other governors to emulate him.

“I write to congratulate Your Excellency on this outstanding gesture extended to Nigerian women to address the low participation of women in the political landscape in Nigeria through Your Excellency’s appointment of nine women out of the 16 commissioner-nominees in Kwara State. This is by far the highest amongst states that have put in place their cabinet,” Tallen said in the congratulatory letter to AbdulRazaq.

Tallen applauded AbdulRazaq’s visionary leadership in giving female the space to contribute their quota to national development, saying the ministry would partner with Kwara to address topical issues affecting women and children in the state.

“Consequently, I write to inform Your Excellency that Nigerian women through my ministry will confer on you the ‘He-for-She’ Award of Excellence. This award is in recognition of your vision of changing the political landscape for the participation of women in Kwara State and by extension Nigeria,” she added.

Tallen said the award would be conferred on the governor at the National Council on Women Affairs scheduled for Thursday October 31 in Ondo State.

The event would be attended by all Commissioners for Women Affairs across Nigeria.

At the screening on Tuesday, the nominees fielded questions ranging from their understanding of government machineries and how they would deploy their education and professional backgrounds to build a viable state anchored on realistic policy thrust.

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