Do you know that about 56 communities in the nation’s capital, Abuja, still practise killing of twins? I mean after going through the entire trimesters of pregnancy, a woman, mother, sister, a daughter has her twin babies killed. Ten years ago I lost my mother, she died due to loads of complications arising from a poorly managed health sector, possible misdiagnosis and more. Today, women still die over the same reasons and more.
In Africa and Nigeria; the Women’s War or Aba Women’s Riots (Igbo: Ogu Umunwanyi; Ibibio: Ekong Iban), was a period of unrest in British Nigeria in November 1929. The protests broke out when thousands of Igbo women from the Bende District, Umuahia, and other places in eastern Nigeria, travelled to the town of Oloko to protest against the Warrant Chiefs, whom they accused of restricting the role of women in the government.
Do you know Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala? She is a Nigerian-born economist and international development expert. Now, before we go far, there was Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, an activist, teacher, political campaigner and founder of the Nigerian Women’s Union. Margaret Ekpo was Nigeria’s first female political activist. Ladi Dosei Kwali, the pioneer of modern pottery in Nigeria. She is also the first and only Nigerian woman to appear on a currency note. How about Florence Nwanzuruahu Nkiru Nwapa? She was the first female writer in the country and Africa’s first female novelist to have an internationally published work in the English Language. Grace Alele Williams was one of the first Nigerian women to obtain a PhD in Mathematics. She was also the first female vice-chancellor in Nigeria.
Despite these threatening resume of great women and achievements, many of them are not on this list as this is not really an honors’ roll call. Nigeria has a crazy child marriage problem with 43 per cent of girls being married off before their 18th birthday and 17 per cent before they turn 15. With all the education and civilization, female genital mutilation is still commonplace causing our women, infertility, maternal death, infections, and the loss of sexual pleasure. How about girl child labour?
I dare say in our badly managed nation our women are more economically excluded than men. They lack access to decent work, recognition and redistribution of unpaid care and domestic work, leadership and decision-making, access to resources, legal entitlements, and many others weigh them down. It is a silent crisis of women’s economic inequality that constitutes a systemic and systematic violation of women’s human rights. It prevails despite the accumulating evidence that economic empowerment yields benefits for women, businesses and the economy.
I cannot begin to give you the statistics of wives who have become caregivers to their entire families; they are the bakery and the bread, the wheat and dough. And yet suffer all forms of violence as well as mental and emotional violence than physical. Next time you see a woman, do you see a new nation, possibilities or a Nigeria that continues to stamp her feet on her women, and remain at the doldrums—only time will tell.
Dr. Prince Charles Dickson,
pcdbooks@yahoo.com
and then