Shamima Muslim, a member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) communications team, has revealed she decided to transition into politics due to the underrepresentation of women in politics.
Shamima Muslim, a former media professional and gender activist, shared her journey during an interview with Bernard Avle on Channel One TV‘s Point of View.
She has gained attention for her support of the NDC. She urged Ghanaians to support the NDC and its flagbearer, John Dramani Mahama, during the party’s campaign launch in Tamale over the weekend.
When asked about her political ambitions, she said, “Somewhere last year. After I left the media, I went back into my development work but this time setting up AWMA. So, I did AWMA in 2017. But towards the beginning of last year, I think the calling was quite strong because I kept asking myself what next in the scheme of affairs.”
“In fact after we did the local elections campaign for increasing women’s participation in local governance and the results came out, I was deeply heartbroken because here is District Level Elections and we were hoping that we would be seeing some progress given all the work that had been done over the years to build the capacity of women to contest, help them sometimes with resources and yet the numbers – We had about 4.1 % of women elected into the district assembly and that was worrisome to me and I thought that no we can’t all keep saying that women should go into public life, into politics when those of us who are telling other women to do these same things are able and capable to do those same things.”
“…So as of last year it was clear that it was what it was going to be and so I started preparation by supporting various committees of the NDC and eventually I decided to come out and openly campaign for the NDC and John Dramani Mahama because in principle I believe wholly and fully that the NDC and JM deserve a mandate,” she stated.
