Its funny where you get stories sometimes. Emmanuel and I were buying a schwarma at the lebanese snackbar in Wuse, trying to avoid the heat pumping out of the shack, when a lady recognised Emma. She turned out to be a former president of the National Council of Women's Societies. Their national election was just cancelled by the minister for women's affairs yesterday.
How can the government interfer so blatantly with an NGO? Well apparently the current president has been in a battle with the government and anti corruption agencies for years. The government investigated her, found evidence of fraud and took her to court, using the ICPC. The case failed, and the president of the NCWS held a meeting in her home state, Nasarawa, calling for a year's extension of her tenure -because she's spent so much of the previous year in court. Thats Chutzpah. Anyway, the government cancelled the last election, according to our friend, becuase the president only entertained candidates for the positions from seven states, held a quick meeting in Nasarawa (its against the constitution of the organisation to hold a meeting in the same place twice), and told the candidate from Kaduna that if she stood, the president of the NCWS would sue her.
We asked she could go on the record with any of this, and she was hesitant, but ended up saying, "I am the perfect person to go on the record of this... but let me ask the minister."
Apparently she's had a year long battle with the current president. The politics of gender is the same as any other politics here, obviously.