National Coordinator of the Nigerian Network of Women Exporters (NNWE), Nkiru Joy Okpala, is a holder of master’s degrees in no fewer than three different fields, including Law and Business Administration. She speaks with YETUNDE OLADEINDE on her love for training programmes, the potential of export services and its challenges.
How is life as a lawyer who is helping to develop the export service sector?
The law profession is very interesting. When I sit in my office and somebody calls me from the United States, saying, ‘Can you help me register a company?’ Or the person wants me to bring a company to Nigeria and I say, ‘Okay, it would cost you so and so amount,’ and he wires some dollars to me, what have I done? I am sitting in my office and exporting my service. This is how to tell you there are modes of exporting service. If I have not been put through by this organisation, I might not have understood that.
What informed your choice of the Law profession?
Although I studied Law, I also hold an MBA in Business Management and another master’s degree in Business Administration. I also hold a post graduate diploma in Management Accounting. These are apart from my legal profession where I have gone for post graduate and masters.
When I was growing up, I saw lawyers in their wigs and gowns and I was thrilled, so I said I must also wear them. I also had another passion: if I see someone being trampled upon, I feel for them and wonder why someone would do a thing like that to another. That was how it started.
By the time I got into legal practice, I joined FIDA. I am still a member of FIDA (International Federation of Women Lawyers) and the International Bar Association (IBA). As much as I had this passion, I also had the passion to help people come out of poverty. That took me to the other things that I do.
I realised that most organisations are interested in doing things around violence against women, women’s rights and all that. Yes, they are good, but they have not actually addressed the other side of the woman—a process where a woman has confidence in herself and where she can compete with the men favourably. So, when this opportunity came, I was happy and knew I had seen something that would help women achieve their dreams, and I said I was going to work at it.
I thank God that we have been achieving a lot and I am grateful that we are seeing results in what we are doing. When you work and you do not see results, you do not get encouraged.
Let’s talk about some of the places where you schooled…
I had my primary, secondary and university education in Enugu. Then I did my PGD (post graduate diploma) at the University of Ife and my LLM with Kogi State University. And aside those ones, I had a lot of international programmes. I have gone on a lot of executive programmes with the World Bank in Washington DC, and Policy and Economic Studies with the London Graduate School in UK. I also did Arbitration and alternative dispute Resolution at the University of Estrada in Germany. I have really travelled far and wide when it comes to executive training. I have been to about 68 countries of the world. Some were for conferences, some on presentation of papers and others where we had to sit with other people to understand how the shoe pinches them and how it pinches us. At the end of the day, we come back to implement what we have learnt.
What gives you the drive to do all this?
Well, I would say it is the passion for doing something you know would affect others. Mine is not about money because most times, I spend my money doing all this and come back to relay it to the women. I do a lot of research and I write articles for International bodies. I write for missions and I derive joy doing such work. It gives me great pleasure. If I am alone and not doing anything, I am not fulfilled. I feel as if something is missing from me.
What influence did your parents have on you?
My parents are disciplinarians. My father really influenced me. He was a banker but he is late now. When he was alive, he was comfortable and contented with what he had. He was not looking for the extras and he made us to understand that as well. He made us to realise from childhood that the best gift from him was the intellectual ability and knowledge.
When we were growing up, he was not living with us because of the regular transfers to different states. Funny enough, whenever he was coming back, one thing I always looked forward to was his pile of newspapers.
What is the focus of your organisation?
It is focused on trade and services; trying to let women know how they can improve their economic status. I am the national coordinator of the organisation in Nigeria, and it was launched in Abuja in 2006, as well as in Lagos. It was officially registered in 2007.
Was there a need for the organisation?
Yes, there was. It came as a final project of the DFID, which was implemented by the International Trade Centre, a unit of the United Nations. It was like the world was going through a lot of innovations and things were happening. Research showed that every time, we talk about expanding a product, forgetting that the major driver of the economy is the service sector. Again, women in developing economies are involved in the service sector. Moreover, before any product would come into existence, there must be a lot of services, and those are the ones changing the economy and bringing about a lot of issues
The outside world felt that developing countries, especially Nigeria as a major country in Africa, can show the use and essence of the service sector. So, that was how it came about. It was the executive director of the International Trade Centre who came in the company of other executives to launch it. In attendance was the then Minister of Commerce as well as the Minister of Women Affairs and the executive Director of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council.
What were some of the programmes and projects you have carried out?
We have carried out a number of projects. We were involved in advocacy projects. We first of all tried to understand the problems women are having when it comes to trade and services. So we had to also lead them through the dictates of export. Having done that for the people in the private sector, we brought in the public sector. We had to retrain them to understand that if the environment is not stable, there is no way that they can do business.
We saw that the average person in business was suffering and so we had to go to them to understand their own role when it comes to efficiency in service delivery and expanding the non-oil sector through service. That was one. And then we went further to see that better education was put in place and we had to deal with other issues because we saw that the world is going global. In Africa, you find that we have the customs’ tariffs, which also affects the export of not just goods but also services. So we had to see how we could facilitate trade across the regions of Africa. And during the EPA negotiations, we had to make sure that the voices of women were heard.
Again, the network has participated during the World Economic Forum in Abuja. We had to let them bring in the African world because the Forum was for Africa, to let them understand how to develop and handle the service sector, since we were talking about non-oil export. So, we looked at how to develop it and assist the women. Then again we have been very fast in gaining the consultative status with the United Nations.
We have also been involved in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which is coming to an end this year. And the new goals are sustainable development goals (SDGs). And where we are talking about developing the economy, the environment and the social aspect of life, the climate change, innovations and technology, in all this, trade and services as well as financial issues are involved.
We were a member of the major group that went to Ethiopia to draft an African agenda that would be included in the high level political forum in New York for the SDGs in the world. We are also the protocol for financing for development, which is also coming up in Ethiopia this July. Not just for Ethiopia but also within the local area, we have also been able to gather some women who are involved in trading in products to see how we can help in establishing warehousing for them.
One of the things we do is creating awareness and access to international markets. So, most times, we take the women on international symposia, international business meetings and even local business meetings. We now realise that these women are productive but cannot access markets for their products. One of the services we render to them is trying to liaise with other countries that are interested in their products, finding markets for them and seeing how they can improve on their exports through assisted delivery. These are some of the things that we have done.
The other thing is that we have been in contact with the Centre for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), where they formed a network consisting of 17 women organisations. We have been with them and we have been at the forefront of issues about expanding their services as it relates to business, and we did a project on access to credit.
Is it easy doing all these or are there challenges?
There are numerous challenges. The number one is letting people understand that what they are doing is adding value to the society. When you are able to understand what you are doing and understand how to do it best, you stand a chance of competing favourably with others locally and internationally.
The second is the access to funds that we work with. Because we do not have support from anyone, we raise our funds on our own. I should say that it was once that we received something from the Nigerian Exports Promotion Council. They are our parent body when it comes to supervision. When it comes to dealing with women and addressing their issues and helping them to come out of poverty, which is their major role, we are cash-strapped.
