By Kemi Yesufu
Despite being a familiar face in high society, billboards announcing ace compere, Dr. Adedayo Benjamins-Laniyi, as an aspirant for the All Progressives Congress (APC) FCT senatorial ticket in 2023 came as a pleasant surprise.
Just maybe, DBL as she is popularly known getting into politics shouldn’t be too much of a surprise as she has a long history of working with women and youths, both as a pastor’s wife and as an entrepreneur. As with many politicians, DBL says she stuck around despite not picking APC’s senatorial ticket for the FCT. She was soon announced as the pioneer mandate secretary of the FCT Women Affairs Secretariat.
Benjamins-Laniyi in this interview with Frontline News Online explained why she accepted to serve as a mandate secretary in the FCT, saying: “I accepted this appointment because it is a progression of my becoming a politician by disruption. One thing I have come to find in the place of emergence and evolution as a woman in the political space, is that, it is one thing to present yourself for elective office, like I did to become a senator. As a woman who presents herself for political office, if you win or lose or you are disenfranchised, what is the next thing? For me, the next step is for you is not to leave the room. I would tell women that after going through the five stages of grief, don’t leave the political space or lose your political purpose”.
Pressed further on what she meant by describing herself as a ‘politician by disruption’, she explained, “Politician by disruption means, I am the least expected person to emerge a politician in the FCT or to run for the Senate”.
When reminded that she has mingled with VIPs for many years having anchored some of the biggest events in Abuja and across the country, DBL replied philosophically, saying: “I haven’t been around powerful people, I have always been around powerful opportunities, and this exposed me to becoming a person of implicated power”.
She continued: “What is real power? Real power doesn’t mean you present as a powerful person, rather it means that you have good network and influence. So, power is not who we are but what we become through our alliances and associations. These days we talk about influencers on social media, some of them with contrived influence, what I am talking about is my becoming a person of influence through real traction, through a state of progression, that people observe and relate with over time”.
Observing the work carried out by Benjamins-Laniyi in the past months, it is obvious she’s adopted a hands-on approach. This reporter waited for her to complete a long meeting with managers of orphanages in the FCT to conduct this brief chat.
Indeed, far reaching reforms need to be carried out to modernise the FCT Women Affairs Secretariat and to make the department more proactive as much as it is responsive to the many problems facing women and the less privileged in the FCT. Hence, in response to a question about what she will do differently, DBL disclosed that she has the support of the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike and the Nigerian First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, to better position the department she superintends.
She said: “A Women Affairs Secretariat has been set up, it has never been so with the FCT Administration in 48 years. I believe the Women Affairs Secretariat couldn’t have come at a better time as a time when the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu started her Renewed Hope initiative. It is clear that I have come on the platform with a different theme. Women have become top priority for the Barr Nyesom Wike-led FCT Administration. He set up the secretariat and he is re-setting the agenda of the secretariat based on the expectations from the public domain and the history of interventions”.
“Personally, what am I going to do differently? I am going to give definition and be deliberate with the interventions of government, through policies, through having an inter-section with the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, as well as collaborating and sharing ideas with critical stakeholders on women, children, youths and persons with disability.
“For us in the FCT, women are a key project, from women in the grassroots to women of elite representation, to the entrepreneurs, farmers, the artisans or sportswomen. The FCT has what it takes to be the pilot location for every kind of intervention for women. We have many of our international partners who have their headquarters here in the FCT but they haven’t actually done as much constructive intervention with women in the FCT. For the first time these partners are speaking to grassroots women in our six area councils and women who have migrated to the FCT professionally, through marriage, and others means through which they moved to the FCT. For the first time developmental partners are working with women in the FCT directly”.
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