Women and growing immiseration in Nigeria

IN 2011, the world celebrated the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leyman Roberts Gbowee, two representatives of Liberian women, alongside the Yemeni woman, Tawakkol Karman, “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.” Gbowee, in conjunction with some other women leaders in Liberia, had put together Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace to work to end Second Liberian Civil War in 2005. 

Women, as usual, were bearing most of the burden of the War as they “had to endure the pain of watching their young sons … (being) forcibly recruited into the army. A few days later these young men would come back into the same village, drugged up, and were made to execute their own family members. Women had to bear the pain of seeing their young daughters… (being) used as sex slaves at night and as fighters during the day … women had to sit by and watch their husbands, their fathers … (being) taken away. In most cases, these men were hacked to pieces.” Unable to continue to tolerate these atrocities and their attendant pains, a group of Liberian women came together and released the plan for a campaign that called for non-violence and peace. 

The women were prepared to “take the destiny of Liberia into their own hands … (declaring that) in the past they were silent, but after being killed, raped, dehumanized, and infected with diseases, war (had) taught them that the future (was) in saying no to violence and yes to peace.” The protests of the women convinced the war gladiators to all agree to attend a peace talk where the women were also present to continue to apply pressure on the warring factions. Two hundred women surrounded the room (for the talks) dressed in white, dominating the conversation. Any time the negotiators tried to leave, the women threatened to take off all of their clothes. Enclosed in the room with the women, the men would try to jump out of the windows to escape their talk. But the women persisted, staging a sit-in outside of the (venue).

They blocked all the doors and windows and prevented anyone from leaving without a resolution. Their actions brought about an agreement. As a result, the women were able to achieve peace in Liberia after a 14-year Civil War and later helped bring to power the country’s first female President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who made women’s rights one of her priorities in office, leading to her sharing the Nobel Peace Prize with Leymah Gbowee, the leader of the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace.

 The lesson from this Liberian experience is that there is enormous power with the women when properly harnessed, that could be used to positively influence the course of a country at critical times. And this is particularly to be acknowledged in the light of the current debilitating crises facing Nigeria and the recent decision on the part of wives of Governors of all the States in the country to mobilize women for sustained special prayers on behalf of the country. True the Liberian mobilization of women also started as a prayer mobilisation, with reports suggesting that the process commenced with thousands of local women praying and singing (for peace) in a fish market for months.

But evidently, the women did not stop at the level of praying in that they also had to take action in line with their prayers as the Holy Books enjoin us to work and pray and not just to keep praying alone. The Liberian women moved beyond only prayer to incorporate protest and other forms of campaign into their efforts for peace and it was only because of the concerted action on their part that they were able to get the warring factions to agree to peace talks. In which case, we would also expect Nigerian women not to stop at or with the current plan for prayers and move to incorporate and include other forms of action and campaign into their efforts to positively affect and change the current crises situation in Nigeria.

We have also called attention to the fact that the Liberian women became concerned after bearing the extended negative effect of the war, such that they were moved by the growing unbearable burden of the war to want to act to stop the carnage. As Albert Einstein has said, ‘the only source of knowledge is experience,’ with Rita Mae Brown adding that ‘good decisions come from experience,’ indicating that perhaps we would not expect the Liberian women to be so persistent about their intent on peace or even to conceive of and contemplate their power to work for peace if not for the burden of war on them.

Which logic would call into question the appropriateness of wives of Governors in Nigeria leading the campaign for prayers for the current problems and troubles in Nigeria except just as a show or spectacle. For pray, how has any of the wives of the Governors in Nigeria, ensconced as they are in the cocoons and safety of the sprawling Government Houses with their Governor-husbands, been negatively affected or burdened by the perplexing insecurity and collapsing economy that ordinary Nigerians face and experience now? 

 We note that the growing problems in Nigeria, particularly the pervasive insecurity and growing immiseration of the people, obviously deserve concerted action from all concerned in the country including the women who must be bearing a disproportionate effect of the burden of the problems. But we do not see how the reaction of women to challenge and positively affect the processes of the problems would come from the main sources of the problems in the first place. For there is nothing that is wrong with the country that is not traceable to the leadership problem  manifesting in the quality of people in Government Houses across Nigeria. And to therefore believe that the wives of these Governors who are themselves the sources and part of the problems of Nigeria would be the lynchpin for combating or campaigning against the problems would be wishful thinking.

Women, if we are truly concerned with our own deteriorating living conditions, must go beyond the tokenism and spectacle of prayer sessions by wives of Governors and seek to mobilize those who are directly bearing the brunt of the growing immiseration to do something about it. We have lessons of the Liberian success story in this regard to serve as guide as we take advantage of our number as women to launch a campaign to force those at the helms of affairs and presiding over the growing immiseration of Nigerians to buckle up and face the hard task of turning the Nigerian economy into a productive one while also stopping the current reign of insecurity. 

We must stand up as women and not continue to accept the failures of those in government. We believe it is time that women commenced a campaign to reject the growing immiseration in the country and to demand a higher level of responsibility and delivery from those managing our affairs. We must, therefore, go beyond the wives of Governors who are part of the minority of women implicated in bringing about the current debilitating and deteriorating conditions and seek committed and responsible women, who have demonstrated implicit interest in a better society over time, to lead the rescue operation. 

Yakubu is of the Department of Communication and Language Arts, University of Ibadan.

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