Category: Thursday

A country that marginalizes half of her population has definitely shot itself in the foot and cannot run as fast as other healthy nations. This is particularly unfortunate for a backward country where all hands should be on deck. There is no scientific evidence to suggest that women are less cerebrally endowed than men are. This means denying women equal rights and opportunity denies our government the full pool from which it makes its recruitment. Without the right calibre of people manning the strategic centres of our life, there can be no development and without development there can hardly be political and economic stability. Therefore, we must borrow a leaf from such countries like the Scandinavia, Germany, France and Great Britain, where there is no longer a debate on woman’s role in the political and economic life of a country. Even the only superpower which likes to see itself as exceptional country may soon have a female head of state next January 2017.

The question to ask is whether the marginalisation of women has been responsible for our apparent and seeming instability in Nigeria and consequent underdevelopment. The answer is NO. Our instability arises until recently from monopolization of power by the military and marginalisation of the entire civil society, which includes women. Our instability also arises from regional political imbalance, inequitable distribution of resources and national wealth, rampant corruption, youth unemployment, brigandage arising from joblessness, absence of rule of law, social disequilibrium, arrested political and economic development, confusion as to the system and mode of government, marriage of modern and ancient political system without a clear cut direction and evolution of a Nigeria system. While the problem of gender discrimination is a serious issue, it is not the most important factor making for instability and underdevelopment. It is nevertheless a serious issue and it must be tackled along with other issues. Associated with gender discrimination is the issue of sexual harassment, which is usually laughed off the court in Nigeria. But this is not a laughing matter. No country that wants to be taken seriously would condone the offence of sexual harassment, which is endemic in Nigeria. Because of the poverty of our people and the scarcity of jobs, female workers put up with indescribable humiliation in the hands of over-sexed men with unusually active libido. The abduction of underage women and converting them to Muslims or sex slaves is another vicious kind of sexual harassment.

Now that we are in a democratic era, each of the two main political parties must begin to formulate policies especially directed at female and children issues. Politicians because they have had little chance at political leadership have not demonstrated forceful leadership in this regard. It is hoped that the current political dispensation would take more interest in women issues and women empowerment. It may be necessary to embark on affirmative action to allocate a certain parentage of seats to women in the various legislatures and cabinets. Political parties in their own interest must allow and encourage women to hold party political offices as well. Perhaps there is need for a constitutional device to force men to share power with women. The question of franchise has been legally and constitutionally settled. And there is no democracy anywhere in the world where people are forced to vote but in our own situation where quite a large number of our women-folk live in purdah, special and indigenous devices must be fashioned out to ensure the confidentiality of the franchise. Under no circumstance must it be permissible for men to dictate to their wives who to vote for. With modern communication, it ought to be possible for political parties looking for votes to reach the most distant recess of the purdah. There is a general knowledge that when a nation educates its women-folk, that nation is educating the entire society because of the fundamental and important role women play in child bearing and rearing and continuing and preserving human society.

If our goal is to build a vibrant democratic society, then all people must be brought on board, and if we must move at a very rapid rate in order to catch up with the civilized world, then the question of women mobilization is just too important to be trifled with. Without stability there can be no development, with more than half of our population operating at the fringe of our political life, we cannot be said to be politically stable. Stability is not the same as the peace of the grave where society is terrorized into acquiescence or to silence. While women may not be in a position to terrorize society or to overthrow governments, their power lies in the influence, which they have over their male children and also their husbands. We must recognise this influence as power and we must deliberately educate this segment of our society who will always have this power. But above all, women power must not come vicariously through their sons and husbands, women must have access to power on their own merit. The only way to ensure this is by deliberately making our political environment women friendly. This we can do through affirmative action and through legislation. We must also proceed with deliberate speed in educating the female-child. Education has always been a liberating force as well as a training process and medium. With education most of the disabilities of women will overtime disappear. Economic empowerment will follow, and with this will come political participation. With women empowerment will come more voice and brain to confront other fundamental disabilities of our nation. Unity is strength; the more united a country is the better, unity goes beyond overcoming the primordial ties of ethnicity. Nowadays, gender unity is increasingly attracting the attention that it deserves. It may even be more fruitful and more intellectually rewarding if we move away from pre-occupation with ethnic and regional politics and really face the socio-economic issue for our times. What better people to look at the issues of begging, in the midst of plenty, starvation, unclean environment, inadequate health facilities, than women. Examples of countries like Russia, where more than 60% of the doctors are women or the United States, where most of the people who do social work are women, point to the tendency of women to be more suitable in building what President Bush called a “gentler kinder” and more humane society. Our women need to be challenged and our society must embrace the credo of “careers open to talents” and women certainly have talents.

This kind of choice should never have been allowed in the first instance if the state were aware and alive to its responsibilities. Education should be a right and not privilege. The resources to take care of the education of all of our children are there if properly managed and husbanded. In the best of times, female education should be at par with that of their male counterpart. In the public universities for example, the ratio is about 40:60 in favour of men. This is however the reverse in most private universities. This means that parity is within sight. If and when we have almost the same number of women and men vying for the same positions, inequality would not disappear because employers of labour would continue to view materially the loss of labour and corporate earning which leave, with or without pay, associated with child bearing entails. But these are issues, which are being tackled in more advanced economies where men too are being given paternity leave just like the maternity leave for the women.

Discrimination in the job market will never be completely eliminated but it can at least be made illegal but since nobody has ever forced the issue, we still do not know what the opinions of our courts are. It is in the realm of politics that the situation is very serious. Women in Nigeria hardly show any interest in politics. They just want to be left alone to go on with their lives, and take care of their families. Educated women and the majority of their male counterparts actually view politics as a “dirty game”, which is largely played by lawyers and other self employed professionals. And because of the usual violence and thuggery associated with partisan politics, women and self-respecting men shy away from it. There is also the problem of finance. Politics in recent times have become a preserve of the plutocrats. One cannot be a successful politician in Nigeria unless one is well heeled or one has backers who are ready to finance one’s political career as an investment. In this way, one compromises one’s independence and the seed of corruption is sown. Women generally do not seem cut out for this kind of life.

There is also the question of what an aspiring woman politician is to do with a husband who is apathetic or hostile to political participation. The general impression of a woman politician in the minds of Nigerians is that of somebody who is either out of control or out of her station. Nigerian male politicians prefer holding caucus meetings in the nights to the disadvantage of self-respecting women. We know of course that the families of women politicians all over the world have to forfeit their hold, expectations, demands and usual familial relationship with their wives or daughters. It is not easy in a rather conservative African society as ours for this to be done without somebody paying the price. That price is usually paid by women and their children, because the man is usually not inhibited in entering into new liaison with other “homely” and “wifely” partner. These cultural obstacles are immense and difficult to overcome them. We have a national aspiration to be in the league of important and civilized countries of the world. We must therefore march in tandem with the best. It is not a matter of religion anymore.

We have had women serving at the highest levels of government everywhere except Africa. Golda Meier in Israel, the Bandaranaikes – mother and daughter in Sri Lanka, Indira Ghandi in India, Begum Hussaina Mujibur Rahman in Bangladesh, Tansu Ciller in Turkey, Magaret Thatcher in Great Britain, Magot Brundlandt in Norway, Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, Megawati Sukarnoputra in Indonesia, the biggest Islamic country in the world. Other female presidents or Prime Ministers include Edith Cresson (France), Yingluck Shinawatra (Thailand), President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (Argentina), Michelle Bachlet (Chile) and Dilma Vana Rouseff (Brazil). Religious and male chauvinists have and are being confounded everywhere. It is not a question of whether it will be salutary for women to participate and to take the commanding heights in governance; it is a question of equity, fairness and justice.

One cannot identify a pattern, norm or paradigm in countries with women heads of government. But what is discernible is that women tend to be more authoritarian when they are heads of government than men perhaps because they have to assert themselves more than it is necessary for men to do. Mrs Margaret Thatcher used to say she was the ‘only man’ in her cabinet. The level of corruption is not less than when men are in power. From empirical data, there is hardly any difference in the way women or men behave in power. Perhaps the only trait one can isolate is that women in power seem to feel like men and to put other women at a distance. Whatever the shortcoming of women in power, the absence of the feminine touch wherever they are barred from participation is definitely a loss to the polity and society at large. Since the Beijing conference on women empowerment, the United Nations and the collective voice of the world have stood behind women self-realization in every facet of our human existence. It therefore behoves us to ensure that our women-folk have access to political power as their men counterparts. As a resource, man or woman is the ultimate factor in human development.