Former chairman of Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) in Ekiti State, Hon. Toba Daramola has called for the creation of a Ministry of Men Affairs to address the various issues affecting the male population.
Daramola who made the call at the 2nd Lecture series of Toba Adaramola Foundation with the theme “21st Century Gender Challenges,” held in Ado Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital said that this is necessary because men and boys in the country are being neglected without proper attention and care.
Papers were presented at the event by a Professor of Sociology at the Ekiti State University (EKSU), Prof. Christopher Oluwadare; the president of Ekiti State Customary Court of Appeal, Justice Monisade Abodunde and former EKSU Registrar, Dr. Omojola Awosusi.
According to him, “All government activities are geared towards girl child gender equality, nobody is talking about the men and they will say what you don’t value will eventually become a problem for you. Okay their attention is on the girl child going to school but no attention is given to the boy child.
“They are the ones that are into commercial motorcycling. How many of our ladies are seen doing ‘Okada’ work in this place?
After their education, these ladies come back looking for husbands, where will the husbands be when they are not educated?
“So these are some of the things that we are looking at and we say, let us arrange it. It is not as if the men are not having issues, there is nobody that you will call that will not tell you that he is having issues.”
The former local government chairman in the state who stated that his recommendation was not a matter of rivalry but a necessity, saying “I advocated in my presentation that there is need for government at all levels to create the Ministry of Men and Boys affairs to cater for men folk as they are doing for the ladies in the women affairs.
“How many ladies are doing ‘yahoo-yahoo’ (internet fraud)? Majority of them are in school studying but boys are busy looking for money. So these are some of the things that we need to address and then balance the equation and if they are not addressed, I am afraid that there will be problems.
