Chief Mrs. Bisi Ogunleye is the founder of the Country Women Association (COWAN). The organisation which started about 32 years ago began by empowering 225 women with micro credit facilities to boost their businesses. Today, over 320,000 women are beneficiaries of the project she is passionate about. At a point, Ogunleye was invited by the Central Bank to share her success story and management tips with directors of would-be micro finance banks in the country. In this interview, she speaks with Yetunde Oladeinde about her economic empowerment package, living a healthy lifestyle and how she turned an unemployment challenge to a great opportunity in the United States.
WHAT is the secret of your good health? It is because I live as a Nigerian, eat Nigerian traditional foods and take to the laws of good health which my mother gave me.
Can you share some of these laws with us?
First, is to eat good vegetables. Scientists are saying it today, practically they taught us to have vegetables around us and traditionally we had lots of fruits around us. We don’t eat in the olden days in our farms without one fruit or the other beside us. At that time, we thought we were poor and that was why we were not eating bread like the others.
We were eating plantain which was good food but we did not appreciate it then. Now, I am doing exactly what she told me then. My mother died at the age of 115 years. If she lived on all those vegetables and was able to live long, why should I die at 80 or thereabout, eating fake fast foods? I am still young.
How old are you now?
That, I do not know precisely. I should be about 80 years. The Bible says that someone who is 100 years among them is a young person. My father did not die young; he died at the age of 110 years. Therefore, if they did not die young, then I am just starting my own life.
Talking about just starting your life now, what is a typical day like now?
It is one of the things that I inherited from my mother. She was very active and hardworking. I like cooking, writing, reading, talking and chatting with people. I like meeting people, helping them rediscover themselves and I still do that. But I never ask people to do what I don’t do.
What are the things that you write about?
I like to bring out the beauty in some of the things we do, that the modern technology or the western contact is making us lose. The value of saving; it is part of our culture. Our mothers would never go to bed without leaving extra food in the house, because of the strangers that can come any time.
They liked saving money to help one another and it was called esusu or ajo. These are the small, small money that is called inclusion into the big money, which they are talking about. The esusu and ajo that people put together in the market at the family level or church level. If you add this together, you find that it is a lot of money but they do not value it. I remember when we went for a micro credit campaign in Washington in the year 1992.
There, I spoke on a topic called esusu but the Nigerians who were there got annoyed. They said that I went to disgrace Nigerians at the event talking about pennies and all that. They argued that that was not what we should be talking about at that point. Interestingly, one of them is a senator and I am trying to make him come up with a law on esusu and ajo as one of the things that have been our natural way of life. So I write on some of these things and how you can turn that to wealth.
How do you feel helping to turn around the lives of so many women in different parts of the country?
They turned their own lives around. Have I turned around my own life, not to talk of turning somebody else’s life around? What I did is like a torch. You are the one holding the torch but the torch would show you the way and change your life. What actually turned their lives around was when this woman woke up to value their lives. Even though they did not appreciate what they were doing with themselves. At that point, they thought that once you go to school, you are their lord and they are nothing. When you go to their villages, they would say that mama would give you plantain, mama would give you oil, mama would give you yam, but what do you give mama? However, I believe they have a lot that they do; the love they have for their family, children, fellow women and the other sacrifices they make are all very important. Unfortunately, they did not put value on it. These are the things that I made them realise and that they are the backbone of the country. Immediately they grabbed this, things changed and they began to do a lot of things that inspired others. They also taught me a lot about leaves, herbs, the healthy lifestyle, and the things God said we should eat and be well. leaves, herbs, the healthy lifestyle, and the things God said we should eat and be well.
All I did was to first of all help to package it and after packaging I helped them to market it. After this, I helped to create a negotiating table for them.
COWAN was very popular during Maryam Babangida’s Better Life era. What role did the first lady play at that point?
Better Life I would not say came out of COWAN. May her soul rest in peace. She told many people that when she saw what COWAN was doing, she thought somebody must take it up at the policy level. Better Life was to wake up the policy makers and government in particular; to see to the special role the rural women were playing in the development of this country. Better Life and COWAN cannot die; it is not a name but an action. COWAN would die only when there is no rural woman.
Are you saying that the structure in place would survive long after you are gone?
Why not? I am not COWAN, I am only an instrument and I am empowering them to empower other women. It is just like Elijah in the Bible who told Elisha: ‘see me when I am going, and then grab me and I am happy.’
You come from a family of people who are strong and outstanding in their fields; what does this mean to you?
I always tell my brothers and sisters that God has been very faithful to our parents. I think there must be something between this God and our parents. Whatever we have become today is not because we are good but like when God told Abraham that as long as your children do not forget me, this covenant would I keep.
We learnt a lot of hard work from our parents. My father was a policeman but I did not grow up to know him as a policeman. He was then a farmer and my four mothers worked with him. He was a polygamist. One of the things that were a bit different in our family was that even though it was a polygamous home, we did not see ourselves as coming from a polygamous home. I remember that in those days, we had only one mother and the rest were known as aunties or sisters. The one in charge was the senior wife; the treasurer was the senior wife, she was the one who could stand up to the husband and defend the other wives. So, there was cooperation and love. Some of my siblings include Bishop Olukolade and Major General Olukolade. There are so many pastors, deacons and deaconesses in the family. I am the Iya Ijo of Holy Trinity Church, Ido-Ani Diocese. were known as aunties or sisters. The one in charge was the senior wife; the treasurer was the senior wife, she was the one who could stand up to the husband and defend the other wives. So, there was cooperation and love. Some of my siblings include Bishop Olukolade and Major General Olukolade. There are so many pastors, deacons and deaconesses in the family. I am the Iya Ijo of Holy Trinity Church, Ido-Ani Diocese.
If you had to advise women, what would you tell them?
I would tell them to value themselves. If you do not see yourself as anything, nobody would value you. Make sure you continue to do what is good. Then it is also important to train your children properly. It is sad that some mothers do not train their children at all and they allow them to be bigger than them. Just before my mother died, I was to go for a COWAN meeting at Kogi State in 2003 and as I was getting too late, she shouted at me, saying that ‘your father would never be late for an event. Get out of that place and go to your Kogi or no Kogi.’ At that stage, she was after me doing the right thing. Whatever they become tomorrow, it is you. Those young ones are doing wrong things these days and you find them doing things that they should not be doing. I pity the situation that they are in. When you are idle, the devil would give you another job. Instead of them thinking of this, they should look at their background and see what they can do. Many people are saying that it is because they have no job, but how many people employed Dangote, how many people employed Bill Gate? You should think of creating something. When I got to America, I had no job. They refused to employ me as a teacher who had worked in Nigeria for about 25 years. So I started weaving aso-oke shawls and that opened a number of doors for me. Now, they call me and specially invite me to become a lecturer at the Carnegie Melon University for African Studies. So, you see that you can create a job for yourself. Instead of our youths being on the wrong side, let them try to be on the right side.
