More northern women are needed in business space

September 6, 2017

WHEN the United Nations’ development experts advise countries like Saudi Arabia and suchlike nations to allow women into the workforce and business spaces so as to tap into their wealth-creation and poverty-reduction innate abilities, misogynists and doubting Thomases are always left aghast as to how this can ever work out.

In reality, it is not hard to see how this could work out if one just takes an academic look around. I have always enjoyed a meal at a market in Minna, Niger State and only recently did it occur to me that the restaurant is a source of steady employment for up to a dozen persons, mainly married women,.

Most impressive is the fact that the restaurant is run by a typical northern woman, heavy-set and in flowing hijab and all. The stereotype about the “northern” or “Hausa” woman as someone in drab, flowing hijab, abaya or chador (derisively called “parachute” or “bedsheet”) who has nine or 10 children and is expecting the 11th and who is in rivalry with three other women is widespread and taken as fact.

Happily, for me, even though my “customer” fits that stereotype, she is savvy enough to invest in the food business.

She cooks well, drives a Peugeot panel van, and is neat. Her restaurant is clean and, above all, I am pleased that her investment is benefitting scores of married women in flowing hijabs with many children who do all the chores for her.