Eliminating gender biases in Nigeria

Leadership involves good representation and good representation implies political forthrightness. Political forthrightness leads to good governance. Women in governance has always been a hot topic, with naysayers trading blames for the seeming ineffectual utilisation of this special, natural breed.

The question whether women have fared better than men, given equal opportunities, can be answered by considering the strides of late Professor Dora Akunyili, late Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala and their foreign counterparts like Margareth Thatcher, etc. In all of these women, three attributes stand out: self-discipline, a respectable family line with cherished values of equal rights, and the courageous zeal to serve.

For some time now, I have been communicating with a senator from Ekiti State, Mrs Biodun Olujimi and, quite unlike people in her class, she has been quite responsive whenever I expressed my opinions on pressing national issues. Does this not show that she is not carried away by the allure of her office and the exalted name of a senator?

According to the current Vice President of the USA, Mike Pence, “societal collapse was always the product of the deterioration of marriage and family.” In buttressing this point, I believe that the family, being the fundamental unit of every society, is supposed to be enhanced to perform its noble traditional role of being the first breeding space for justice, fairness and equity under the principle of equal rights and obligations for all members of the unit, irrespective of tribe or gender, as partly suggested in the bill presented by Senator Olujimi to the National Assembly on women’s rights.  Whether the male-dominated society purges itself of natural dominance or not, the girl-child must be freed from the bondage of ‘concessions’ that the society has consistently plagued her with.

Examples include the concessions for girls in examination cut-off marks, which have further enhanced the weaker-sex-syndrome and subjected the girl-child to inferiority complex early in life. We must discourage both the formal and the informal systems of male domination through rules and legislation to ensure equal rights irrespective of gender, in order to allow both genders to compete, relate and rule their world. This is not a question of religion but a question of conscience. In the event that this equation is balanced, though, the womenfolk must forget the concept of men being the breadwinners of the home because he that comes to equity must come with clean hands. Should women shed some of the rights that they currently enjoy in this male-dominated society or should we just perish the thought and retain the status quo in order not to rock the boat?

In all of this, one thing is certain: there are so many women, but few colossus like Senator Biodun Olujimi, Dr Dora Nkem Akunyili, Margareth Thatcher and Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti who have either successfully or fruitlessly, in an antagonistic society of male dominance, aspired to better the societies they belong to by pushing for a constitution that sufficiently protects all citizens equally, regardless of creed, faith or gender.