Why I Stopped Giving Women Appointments – Rotimi Amaechi

The Minister of Transportation and former Governor of Rivers state, Rotimi Amaechi, has disclosed why he stopped giving women appointments.

Speaking at the second edition of the Association of Nigerian Women Business Network (ANWBN) in Abuja, during the weekend, he said he stopped giving appointments because of the way other women react to such.

According to the former governor, other women would start saying he is dating a particular woman when she gets an appointment from him.

Amaechi, however, stated that women should be given more opportunities because they are more intelligent than men.

“I do not support male domination, neither do I support female domination. I believe that all of you seated here are qualified to rule this nation; I don’t believe that a particular seat should be set aside for a woman; the reason is that women are by far more intelligent than men,” Taiye Elebiyo-Edeni, his Special Assistant on Media, quoted him to have said.

“The Deputy Secretary- General of the United Nations, Amina Mohammed, was selected not because she is a woman but because she performed excellently well in her previous position.

“When ‘I am invited to a function and women are gathered dancing, I just wonder why women should be dancing at a function; women should be taking more seriously than dancing at a function. When you get to the table, assert your authority as somebody who is brilliant, who is intelligent to get what others are getting.

“Don’t tell me you are on the table and should be given a position because you are a woman, don’t ask that any seat should be set aside for you, ask for your right, it is your right. Women in politics stay for meetings till 2am. So if your husband allows you to join politics, he should be ready to support you.

“Any woman I have ever given appointment merited it, but you are also a problem unto yourselves. If appointment is given to a woman, a fellow woman will start saying the man is dating the woman and that she did not get the appointment because she merited it, which is one of the reasons I stopped.”