Today’s celebration of International Women’s Day is another landmark in the history of womanhood globally. There is no doubt that womanhood deserves celebration in our society for the motherly role God has placed on them from creation. In the beginning, God created man in His own image in the beautiful and sacred Garden of Eden. God the omniscient knew from the beginning that it was not good for man to live and stay alone, hence He created Eve—a woman as helpmate for Adam (man). Ironically, therefore, the world, nation, society and home is incomplete without the existence of women. Irrespective of the attempts of scientists to invent fertility technologies, without the woman, there won’t be fruitfulness and multiplication in the world! Considering women’s motherly roles and functions, there is no doubt that she has crucial roles to play at home, place of work and society at large.
One of her roles is to first influence her children at home to become godly, promising and good citizen to impact the society and nation. The moral decadence on our land presently is alarming and worrisome and is quickly calling for drastic check, otherwise in a decade our society might become more chaotic. I join the entire populace to cherish the roles, values, ingenuity and relevance of womanhood in our society while I also pray that all women across the globe will live long to maximise and appropriate their potentials in the right direction and ingenuity for uplifting our nation through their selfless motherly efforts.
The International Women’s Day has been celebrated since 18th century to recognise and promote the struggle for women’s rights during a period of intense intellectual activity known as the age of enlightenment. In my opinion, this year’s International Women’s Day particularly in our great nation – Nigeria is with mixed feelings because the women have not been maximizing enough their potentials to propound good and decisive solutions to the economic, social and religious problems ravaging our society, most especially our children and youths.
Right from the womb, some of them are infected with deadly diseases as HIV virus, some of them are deprived of the benefits of good and godly parenting as a result of the growing culture of divorce. Many children lack decent homes and daily bread. Consequently, many of them live and die on the streets of our major cities. Women in government in collaboration with existing governmental agencies have been failing to provide adequate security and therefore lose several vulnerable children to incessant killings by Boko Haram, kidnapping, defilement and rape (of underage children and teenagers) going by the reports from the dailies.
Women who are to be role models to children and youth are failing in that capacity. Millions of Nigerian children and youths are rendered jobless and eventually end up becoming vulnerable to recruits of terrorist groups/militant fighters and internet fraudsters, political thugs, highway robbers, etc. Yet, women leaders are not sensitive enough to the yearning of these frustrated children and youths. To be candid, the primary role of women at home and in nation-building disqualifies them from playing second fiddle. There is no doubt that women constitute about 51% of our nation’s population. In other word, if they can form a formidable team and are given the task and opportunity to develop the country, they will definitely surprise all and might even perform better than the men. An average woman is more dedicated, more hardworking, more prudent, more God-fearing, more dependable, more devoted, less tribalistic, focused and more futuristic.
For International Women’s Day to be worth its purpose, particularly in our great nation – Nigeria, women who are builders and makers of the home and society should use occasions like this to put the government on its toes to finding lasting and sustainable solutions to the current hyper-inflation on consumable items in the market. Since it is the women who are first victims of the adverse effect of this hyper-inflation in the market, it is imperative that they should form a formidable front to tackle it. The health of women should be protected from the astronomical increase in prices of household goods and commodities.
Women are in the best position to mount pressure on the current government to find lasting solutions to hunger, abject poverty and joblessness ravaging our society and which is leading to all sorts of juvenile delinquencies in our land. Contemporary women should be reminded of the prominent roles women played in the Aba Women Riot of 1929, Lagos Women Market Protest (1931-1932) and Abeokuta Women Tax Protest of the late 1940s. Women should no longer rely on the empty promises from our leaders deceiving Nigerian citizens to be patient with a hope for a better tomorrow. We have been promised renewed hope, yet it seems it’s a mirage or false hope. What are the signals showing that tomorrow shall be better when corruption, injustices, kidnapping of innocent Nigerians is gradually becoming the order of the day? How many Nigerian manufacturing companies that had been closed down in the previous years have we been able to revive? How functional is the agricultural sector in terms of boosting our foreign policy? What are the many commodities are we exporting as a nation? Are we not a mere consuming nation rather than a producing nation? How many of Nigerian youths have satisfying jobs? The rate at which our youths are leaving the county in search of greener pasture tells of the deplorable state of the nation. The issue of epileptic power supply has remained unsolved for more than two decades now. What exactly are our achievements as a nation?
The hardship Nigerians are facing now with no much hope of a reprieve from our deceitful leaders, calls for action. This is a testament to a biblical verse that says, “hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire is fulfilled, it is a tree of life” Proverbs 13:12. Is it not high time that women sat up and forged a cause for aggressive strategies to intensify the struggle for women’s emancipation towards building a better and prosperous nation? It is said that “There is no chance for the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is improved.” All over the universe “women are seen as the builders and moulders of a nation’s destiny, though delicate and soft as jelly, she has a heart, stronger and bolder than that of man. She is the supreme inspiration for man’s onward march.”
Samuel A. Ogungbemi, a cleric based in Ibadan, wrote through samleyegbemi@gmail.com
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