By: AKPALA Beatrice.
One of the emerging political forces in Nigeria today is unarguably the National Women Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr. Betta Edu. Just within a very remarkably short span in office, she has ably demonstrated her total commitment to the emancipation of the Nigerian female politicians, whose lot has been greatly improved by her political sagacity and individual drive. With a knack for excellent service even while she served as the Director General of the Cross River State Primary HealthCare Development Agency and later as Commissioner for Health, Dr. Betta Edu has continuously demonstrated a very humanistic spirit of service and the desire to improve the people’s lot especially the woman folk.
It was this excellent record of service that brought her into political and national limelight and subsequently her recent emergence as one of the top notchers of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Following these strong footsteps of her highly commendable service, she has struck gold in the minds of the people of not only the political circle but also across societal divide. Her bold, enterprising, goal-getting and determined spirit of feminine fervour is indeed a tall tale in Nigeria’ contemporary political circle.
Since coming on board as the National Women Leader of the ruling APC, Dr. Betta Edu has not rested on her oars. In barely two months in office at the APC Secretariat, her track record speaks volumes. She has been able to effectively galvanize an unshakable support in her determination to enthrone women in various categories of political offices across the 36 states of the federation. Her priceless efforts resulted in getting free party forms for over 700 women during the recently concluded primaries of the APC for the States and National Assembly seats. Of this number, over 30 of them won their primaries for National Assembly seats.
It would be recalled that before the primaries, Dr. Edu collaborated with the First Lady, Dr. (Mrs.) Aisha Buhari, to organize the first ever APC All Female Aspirants Summit which held in the Presidential Villa, Abuja and it yielded quite a lot of political leverage for the women. She has also consistently advised women to come out of their political shells and participate in political activities and not to continuously remain as passive onlookers while the men partake and confiscate every political post available.
The National Women Leader has also impressed it on the women that they can either partake in the political process by standing elections or by supporting aspirants who won their primaries so that they can be carried along in critical positions in government eventually. She has equally been a top notch media advocate since her emergence and she is not about to relent on her efforts.
An exceptional and brilliantly gifted medical doctor turned political powerhouse, Dr. Betta Edu is every political party’s dream of a National Women Leader. Her young age, individual sagacity and hard work can only be gauged through her already piling table of achievements.
His Excellency, the Digital Governor of Cross River State, (Senator) Prof Ben Ayade, did not make the wrong choice in bringing her into the political circle by according her an appointment in 2015, when he came on board the ship of the state, thereby giving her the leeway to flourish. Cross River State will forever be proud of her and the ruling APC at the national level will not be in a hurry to jettison her.