Bisola Anthony, a housewife in Ondo, south-west Nigeria got a news mention when she was reported to have allegedly used a stirring rod to assault her two-year-old daughter over her inability to properly recite numerals.
According to a Nigerian daily newspaper, cries from Bisola’s apartment prompted neighbours who rushed in to plead. They got in to meet a child bathed with injuries and blood stains and subsequently reported the mother to the police.
In Nigeria, spanking children for faltering with school works is a regular occurrence.
As parents in Nigeria continue to exert pressure on children to start learning and reading almost as soon as they set foot into a school compound; Ghana, Nigeria’s close neighbour is advancing a different approach.
“Research has shown that children learn better through play. Kindergarten education is not a serious business, you need to allow the child to play.” Vida Ntow, the Early Childhood Coordinator for Ghana’s education ministry told a group of journalists during a reporting trip organized by the International Centre for Journalists.
Ranked as one of the fastest growing economies in the world, Ghana is a pioneer in the expansion of two years of pre-primary education in Africa. The West African country is gaining tremendous strides. Net enrollment has soared to 74.6 % as seven out of 10 children are in school at the KG level.
In 2005, the government of Ghana developed a KG Curriculum and also implemented KG as part of basic education. An enrollment drive on age appropriateness has seen improvement in right-age enrollment even as the percentage of trained teachers from KG increased from 30 percent in 2007 to 65 percent in 2017.
At Ashongman MA Basic 1 school, a public school in Accra, Ghana’s capital city, children in KG classrooms sat circled around a wooden table. The walls of the classrooms are painted with trees, houses and the various shades of the rainbow. Hanging on the walls were letters of alphabets and numerals in varying sizes.
There’s a lot of singing and dancing in many of Ghana’s KG classes. The children at Ashongman wriggled their waists as they danced along with the teacher to the rhythm of school rhymes sang in the local dialect. Except for English language, other forms of learning at the KG level is conducted in the language of the immediate environment.
“You may think they are playing but at the same time they are learning. We build learning around the play-based method. We don’t subject them to paper and pen examination, but according to whatever activity they are capable of doing at a given time”, Ntow stressed.
Ntow further attested that it’s not been easy convincing Ghanaian parents to change attitudes regarding expectation of writing and reading from pre-school children. Even though government is keen on a play-based method for kindergarten education in Ghana, the Rote method which deals with memorization of learning based on repetition is favoured by parents and some private schools.
According to Oxfordlearning.com, benefits of the Rote learning method include ability to quickly recall basic facts and develop foundational knowledge. But the disadvantage far outweighs the perceived benefit. Experts have found that the Rote method does not encourage the use of social skills and also deters a deeper understanding of subjects. Again, children taught through the Rote method may be unable to establish connections between new and previous knowledge, resulting in wrong impression or misunderstanding of a concept.
Although Ghana’s early child education system is still fraught with inadequate infrastructure and low capacity of KG teachers; the Ghanaian government has demonstrated commitment to strengthening the system in a way that ensures accountability for early childhood education services, Agnes Arthur, an Education Specialist with UNICEF in Ghana told The Nation.
The entries were praised by the jury for the extensive fieldwork, consultation with experts and provision of hardcore evidence since samples of sachet water were subjected to laboratory tests at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) Lab. The stories were made possible through a grant from Code for Africa, a non-profit organisation reputed as the continent’s largest federation of data journalism and civic technology hubs.
For being the overall winner, Ojo was presented with a plaque, N200, 000 and a N50,000 gift voucher from Vita Foam, sponsors of the awards.
Jesusegun Alagbe of The Punch was runner-up in the same category as well as ICIR’s Amos Abah. No prize was awarded for the online and broadcast categories owing to lack of quality entries.
Ms Ojo, who was among 15 young journalists selected from around the world by the United Nations Department of Public Information, covered the just concluded 73rd United Nations General Assembly in New York for three weeks as a Reham Al Farra Fellow.
She is a recipient of the 2017 Newscorp Fellowship hosted by The Times of London and The Wall Street Journal and is an alumnus of the U.S. Department of State Foreign Press Centers reporting tour on human trafficking. She won the Most Innovative Reporter Award at the Nigerian Media Merit Award in 2016 and was a nominee in the Agriculture and Reporter of the Year categories last year.
Speaking on the criteria of the award sponsored by Vitafoam Nigeria PLC, Professor Sunday Atawodi, the Public Affairs Secretary of NAS, affirmed that journalists who want to participate in the award would not only need to demonstrate the capacity for science reporting but also show volumes of science reporting that will impact the society within the year.
Endowed by the Nigerian Academy of Science, the NAS Science Media Awards, which is in its eighth year, seek to promote excellence in science-related stories. Instituted by the Academy as part of her goal to improve science reporting, the award is open to all print and broadcast journalists who published science or science related stories in the previous year.
NAS President Prof Mosto Onuoha lamented that science had been underreported. “We have been trying over the years to identify journalists that have taken interest in reporting science to Nigerians and trying to promote their work and reward them for diligence. What we may be giving may not be so much but we recognize the important roles they are playing,” he said.
Mrs Eugenia Abu, The Creative Director, Essential Communications & Managing Partner, The Eugenia Abu Media (TEAM), was the key note speaker for the night. Speaking on the topic “The nexus between Science and Media: Gaps and Opportunities”, she made a case for scientists to relate better with the media to ensure they have access to information.
Two Nigerian education campaigners Omotoke Olowo and Gideon Olanrewaju have canvassed for actions on global education, asking world leaders on their plans to get the world’s 260 million out of school children in to education.
Olowo, CEO of Autism Awareness, and Olanrewaju, founder of Aid for Rural Education Access, made the call at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York City, where they attended the UNGA as part of education charity Theirworld’s #WritetheWrongCampaign.
The duo attended high-level meetings alongside business executives and dignitaries such as Amina Mohammed, Gordon Brown and Graca Machel. At a meeting hosted by the Global Business Coalition for Education, Olanrewaju warned world leaders that: “young people would hold them accountable for concrete actions to move education forward.”
Olowo on her part praised Gordon and Sarah Brown for being passionate about helping children and young people get the education they need to live independent lives.
“What impressed me most was their commitment to marginalised children and those with learning disabilities who have previously been forgotten in the global education debate,” she said.
She went further to say that the higher costs involved in supporting children with special educational needs is a barrier for many governments.
“I hope the increased funding for global education that charities such as Theirworldand Save the Childrenare calling for will be used to support every child to get an education,” Olowo submitted.
According to UNESCO, increased financing is essential to close the annual funding gap needed to support global education that low and middle-income countries face. The proposed International Finance Facility for Education (IFFED) aims to generate $10 billion dollars for education by using donor guarantees to leverage lending from multilateral banks.
Despite significant advances in education across the globe, experts argue that over a quarter of a billion of children are out of school – 1 in 5 children don’t have a basic education.
Sarah Brown, Theirworld President, said: “Many people are simply not aware of the scale of this crisis. Children out of school face a dire future of exploitation, child labour and early marriage. If leaders fail to act now an entire generation will miss out on an education.”
The #WritetheWrong campaign aims to tackle the growing global education crisis, The Nation learnt.
•Concerns over rising population of children orphaned by herdsmen attacks
Joshua was only two and very engrossed in stamping his feet on the low lying undulating field of his hometown in Agatu, a region in Benue State renowned for its fertile soil and large water bodies.
In 2014, a bunch of armed herdsmen with lean bodies invaded his hometown. While other people fled into safety to escape the unexpected attacks, Joshua stood by the side of his bedridden father, a farmer who struck by illness.
“As death got closer, the hapless little boy could not fathom an escape route, so he ran under the bed at the sight of armed men who pulled down the door to the house with little effort.
Joshua’s father was slaughtered in his presence. The herdsmen made a video, handing him the phone to say something as they recorded the gory scene.
For two days, Joshua was left in seclusion. The villagers only took note of him when they returned to count the dead and prepare their bodies for burial.
“The villagers felt terrorised by Joshua’s experience because he had seen things that a child should not see. They quickly released him to me,” Favour Enewa Adah Paul, the 35-year-old lady raising children displaced by farmers/herdsmen conflicts in Makurdi recalls.
She added that when Joshua came into the house, he constantly had nightmares and was hostile to other children.
A Home of refuge and succor
Favour Enewa Aaah-Paul
Since 2014, Favour has busied herself with giving children like Joshua (who has now grown into a six-year-old with a bubbly smile) a good chance at life.
The Tivid Orphange Home, located in the North Bank area of Makurdi, Benue State capital, could be accessed from a tiny untarred path. Tall maize ridges adorn the dual colored painted wall of the large compound which houses an apartment, a playground and a makeshift building serving as classrooms.
The home caters for orphans from areas invaded by herdsmen, such as Agatu, Guma, Logo and some parts of Nasarawa and Taraba states. It was officially opened in 2014 with nine children orphaned by herdsmen attacks in Agatu and now houses 55 children. Favour intends to bring in 20 more children orphaned by the January 2 herdsmen attacks in Guma Local Government Area as the new school term begins in September.
The signboard of the Tivid Orphanage Home
A single mother, Favour draws strength from her own ordeal. Ten years ago, she was drugged and then raped and gave birth to twins. One of them died, leaving her helpless with the burden of raising her son alone.
When the Agatu crisis started in 2012 and many people were displaced, she emptied her savings to buy food items which were served to some of the displaced persons for breakfast.
During the distribution of the food, she noticed that while some mothers were pushing to collect huge portions for their children, other children stood far away, helpless as they had no one to fight for them.
She said: “I remember asking myself why these children were on their own. My mind didn’t take me to the fact that some children were orphaned from the crisis. From that sight, I developed a passion for them,” she said, placing her hands on the large table in a corner which has been turned into an office space in the home.
When she ran out of her savings and the feeding programme at the displaced persons camp ended, Favour had resigned to moving on when a dream changed the course of her action.
According to her, it was during the cold harmattan season in November. She had covered her child in a duvet and was making to close the windows to keep the room warm when her mind travelled to the scene of naked children sleeping in uncompleted buildings.
“God took me to an IDP camp and I saw children that were naked. God told me to go and take care of these children,” she said.
The next day, she spent the whole day visiting an orphanage at Gboko, after which she started bringing some of the orphaned children into her family house in Agatu. She travelled back to Makurdi to house them in a rented space which now houses a teeming number of children.
Although the home was originally founded to provide succour for displaced children, she has also welcomed abandoned babies since she understands their needs, having been abandoned at the point when she was pregnant with her child.
During the process of selecting the children into the home, Favour was flustered by the fact that the displaced persons preferred the male children to be sheltered than the female.
“They believe education will favour the boys more. I am from Agatu and the people will tell you openly that education is not for girls. Most times, they wanted me to take the older boys, but I declined since I don’t have the strength. I wanted young children who would be amenable to the training I give them,” she said.
Teaching them forgiveness
Children at the Tivid Home singing to welcome visitors to the home
With the home now bustling with children, few of them few months old and to age 12 or thereabout, there are usually frictions arising from their co-existence. Benue State, a largely rural area with scattered settlements, is inhabited predominantly by the TIV, Idoma and Igede people. Since some of the children were not exposed to speaking English from home, friction would often arise from the admixture of diverse languages in the house.
Also, since the children are exposed to toxic stress and many of them suffer post-traumatic stress disorders, they often come into the home hostile.
“We had to become judges settling cases every now and then,” Favour said of the disposition she and her staff have adopted in resolving conflicts in the home.
She offered that the home has succeeded in curbing aggressive behaviour through the introduction of education to the children and also exposing them to places of interest such as the zoo, parks and children parties.
Since nothing should be left to chance, the children brought into the home also have to undergo health screening and medical tests.
Hope of shelter hangs in the balance
Abandoned toddlers taking a nap in the bed placed in the sitting room of the orphanage
For children like Joshua and the 54 other children in Tivid orphanage, their hope of continued stay in the orphanage hangs in the balance. The compound housing the Tivid Orphanage Home has been put up for sale. The classrooms where the children study are in a shambles. There are not enough textbooks to go round and there is no furniture in the living room. The kitchen is out of shape and the doors to the wash rooms have broken down. To accommodate more children, the home needs more beds and furniture. The home also needs to pay staff salaries as volunteers only come once in a week.
Implication for Early Childhood Development
With the violent clashes between herders and farmers stemming from an intense struggle for economic survival, the mental wellbeing of many of the displaced children is under threat.
Children in displaced settings also stand the risk of being exposed to toxic stress. A growing number of research has shown that the stress of growing in poverty can have long-term effects on children’s brain and cognitive development. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is also an issue for displaced children as the trauma of war and conflict could result into difficulty in learning, cause depression and dependency on drug use.
A child’s right activist, Betty Abah, founder of Centre for Children’s Health Education, Orientation and Protection (CEE-HOPE), said the humanitarian crisis in Benue has implications for illnesses and long-term growth deficiencies for the affected children.
Emphasising that continuity of children’s education should be a priority even in displacement, she bemoaned the fact that the education of thousands of children in Benue’s IDP camps have been disrupted.
“This is not a good development with Nigeria still toping the chart for having the highest number of out-of-school children in the world. Neither the state nor the Federal Government has shown any determination. They are so fixated on the next election and our children in and out of IDP camps are the ones paying the price of their insensitivity,” Abbah said.
She added that with the recent development, fundamentalism and all sorts of socially deviant behaviors can creep in by the time the children grow into their youthful years.
Describing the current state of the children in the camp as disheartening, Abah, a Benue State indigene, blamed both the federal and state governments for failing the children.
She also points at members of the society who have taken fleeting interest on the suffering of the children, saying they are children born to the giant of Africa whose welfare the giant cannot guarantee.
“It’s simply sad that after escaping brute murder in the hands of herdsmen militia, these poor kids still die of malnutrition in the camps. The Benue State Government claims to have spent billions of naira on security and welfare of the IDPs, I am compelled to ask him if he used it for noodles or kulikuli for the children, because most of the children in most of the camps are malnourished,” Abah lamented.
Continuing she said: “This is a state that owes workers’ salaries for several months, yet you can’t feed your own displaced people. What do you do with the federal allocations, supposing the state does not generate any internal revenue? If there is anything to be done, is it not to feed the displaced people out of which the governor has made so much political capital?
She pleaded with the Federal Government to take more than a cursory look at the plight of the IDPs in Benue since over 100,000 people are displaced and most of them are children.
“There is a huge humanitarian crisis in the North East but Benue is not any better. Benue needs attention. We can’t afford to fail the children. The suffering is too enormous for these innocent children. And it is completely preventable and manageable. With reports of killings still ongoing, most of the displaced persons in Benue, Pleateau and beyond are not prepared to go home. They deserve protection and welfare, particularly the vulnerable children,” she stated.
In a report about the displaced children published last week, the DG of the Benue State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Emmanuel Shior, accused the federal government and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) of neglecting the displaced persons in Benue. In response, a regional director with SEMA, Mr Luggard Ishaku, described the claims as untrue.
“We sent some items to Benue and I wonder why they said NEMA is neglecting them. We are presently working on sending another set of relief materials to them. The process is only being delayed by procurement process,” he stated, adding that he would be able to give more information on the development when he returns to the office.
Benue, Nigeria’s acclaimed food basket accounts for 70 per cent of Nigeria’s soybean production. Its rich agricultural products include yam, rice, beans, cassava, sweet potato, sorghum, millet, sesame and other nutritious products. It’s a dark irony that children who grew up in an environment where these food items are in surplus are now faced with an acute shortage with no hope in sight.
President Muhammadu Buhari’s ride to power in 2015 was hinged on two assurances—a promise of change and a direct mandate to fight corruption. It therefore did not come as a surprise when Nigeria joined the Open Government Partnership (OGP) in 2016, committing to an alliance for domestic reforms devoted to making government open, accountable, and responsive to citizens. The alliance is a partnership between government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), working in collaboration with the civil society on specific commitments. It is focused on the core areas of the National Action Plan developed by stakeholders and is geared towards fiscal transparency-public finance, anticorruption, access to information and citizens engagement.
Passing a verdict on Nigeria’s participation in the international alliance under the Buhari administration, Yusuf Shamsudeen, a senior programme officer with the Centre for Democracy and Development, opined that the inability to officially release an action plan for the National Anticorruption Strategy, a move that is significant to meeting part of the core commitment of the OGP, three years into Buhari’s administration does not argue well for the country’s effort in meeting the commitments of the OGP alliance.
While canvasing for journalists to do more stories around OGP in order to mount pressure on government to be proactive, Shamsudeen bemoaned the controversy surrounding the passage of the Proceeds of Crime (POCA) Bill. The POCA bill is aimed at enhancing the process of managing recovered access, by establishing a central agency to manage proceeds recovered from convicted criminals.
“…Both the ministry of justice and the EFCC are claiming to have the mandate to manage looted assets. The way out of the rivalry would be the quick passage of the POCA bill which provides for an agency to see to the effective management of recovered assets in order to ensure they are not re-looted,” he told The Nation.
Whither the National Action Plan?
As a condition for OGP membership, the Nigerian government, in collaboration with civil society developed a National Action Plan (NAP), which contained concrete commitments with milestones and timelines. Ifeoma Onyebuchi, the OGP contact person at the Public and Private Development Center (PPDC), confirmed that open data, accountability, citizen participation and the use of technology are visible across all the 14 commitments in the NAP. The commitments are embedded in the OGP principles and very pivotal for attaining milestones and impacts key for improved service delivery and social accountability.
According to Onyebuchi, the open contracting commitment under the fiscal transparency theme of the OGP is currently being implemented by the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), a government agency responsible for building an efficient country procurement system that meets international best practices. The BPP in its aim to leverage on the power of technology through partnership with civil organisations has created the Nigerian Open Contracting Portal (NOCOPO) which is expected to go live during the OGP week which begins on the 7th of May, 2018. The portal is expected to address inadequacies associated with manual contracting by providing citizens with timely access to public finance related data needed for tracking public resources.
“…Data related with receipts and expenditure will be proactively published by government agencies, while integrating data standards into record keeping”, Onyebuchi further said on the expectations of NACOPO.
It bears stating that the effectiveness of the portal in fostering citizens participation across governance programmes to promote accountability would be determined in the coming days after the launch.
While the government appears to be set on a path of progress in leveraging technology for citizen engagement, the same cannot be said of the commitment to the fiscal transparency agenda of the OGP. Oftentimes, the amount spent on the execution of public projects are often easily accessible. Although the budget office releases implementation report but it is usually not the implementation report of each MDA.
Abayomi Akinbo, a programme officer with BudgIT coordinates the Open Alliance. Assessing Nigeria’s commitment, Akinbo revealed that the Open Budget Survey Index puts Nigeria at a low score of 90 on the 2017 ranking. Nigeria dropped from its initial score of 85 to 90.
“This shows that Nigeria needs to do more in improving the openness of its budget details to the people. This goes beyond pushing out the huge figures on the budget, but the capital components of the budget should be known.
“The Minister of Finance stated that the FG has released N2.45tn in capital expenditure from the 2017 Budget. However, there are no information on the capital projects funded by this release. Procurement/Open Contracting laws should function optimally, but there is little or no openness around the allocation that went into funding each project,” Akinbo submitted. However, he appears optimistic that an effective implementation of the OGP National Action Plan and the Open Contracting Partnership, would lead to success in Nigeria’s open budget systems.
Accessing information and open data
Information is a key asset in the pursuit of good governance since it increases trust among citizens. It’s left to be seen how the access to information commitment upheld by the NAP would be effective in a nation where issues of public interest are often shrouded in secrecy. In fulfilling the OGP mandate, it appears a challenge identified with compliance is knowledge and capacity on the part of the MDAs who make up government parastatals.
Akinbo who further spoke on the progress being made in the area cited the effort of the Access to Information working group. He added that the FOI unit of the ministry of justice is developing a mandatory reporting scheme for all MDAs for uniformity and accountability as well.
On proactive disclosure, the PPDC spokesperson, Onyebuchi is of the opinion that the commitment to access of information contained in the NAP will ensure timeliness and compliance of public institutions with the FOI act enacted in 2011.
“From our experience in ranking MDAs based on their responsiveness and compliance with the Act annually, we have progressively witnessed improvement in compliance especially in regard to proactive disclosure. Also, MDAs have continued to request for trainings on access to information to help improve their proactive disclosure mechanism”, she said.
Although desk officers are being trained on the FOI Act, so they can understand the legality of the information to be provided and the consequences of non-compliance, the reality of the effect of these training differs from the experience of some citizens who have been denied access to information on issues of national interest in some cases. This and many other observations is an indication that Nigeria may be faltering on the Open Government Partnership.
Senator Binta Masi Garba does not incite approbation whenever she is introduced as the only female senator from the 19 states that make up northern Nigeria. “Having only one woman from 57 elected legislators in an entire region is nothing to be applauded. It is not a thing of pride,” she said.
Born in the norther city of Kaduna, 51-year-old Garba has served three terms in the House of Representatives before she was elected into the Senate in 2015 to represent Adamawa North. She also made history as the first female chairperson of the state chapter of a registered mainstream political party when she emerged the chairman of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in Adamawa state.
But her story is not the story of many Nigerian women, competent in strength and character, who have aspired to power by contesting elections since the advent of the Fourth Republic. Nigerian women, assumed to be about half of the electorate with right to vote and hold public office, are under-represented as members of the National Assembly.
“Since the election of democracy in 1999, the Senate has been dominated by males,”, a report on Men and women in Nigeria credited to the National Bureau of Statistic stated. In 1999, there were only three women out of the 109 members of the Senate. In 2007, the number increased to eight. However, there was a decrease from eight women members in 2007 to seven in 2011.
The current dispensation, which ushered in President Muhammadu Buhari, has only seven women. In the Federal Executive Council where there are 36 ministers selected from states across the country, only six of them are women; a further indication that women are underrepresented among high ranking government administrators with decision making powers. Also, after 18 years of uninterrupted democratic governance, Nigeria is yet to produce a female governor in any of the 36 states of the Federation. The only woman who got close to achieving the feat, Senator Aisha Alhassan of Taraba Satte, was edged out, losing to her male opponent who gained the support of the Christian majority in Taraba state. In a few states across the federation, women play the second fiddle as ‘deputy’ or ‘vice’.
Gender inequality also manifest at the lowest level of governance as men account for 95.6 and 90.2 percent of all local government chairpersons and counsellors. Women who often play active roles in grassroots politics are left to grapple with a meagre 4.4 and 9.8 percent respectively.
Nigeria’s gender gap in governance is one of the lowest in the world. As the 2019 election draws near, there is no glimmer of hope that the tide would turn in favour of the womenfolk as only a few women have indicated interest to run in 2019.
Nnenna Elendu-Ukeje, one of the most vocal voices in the Federal House of Representatives, had in an interview with Reuters, admitted to having to fight discrimination, sexual innuendoes, physical threats and insubordination from male colleagues in her role as a
federal law maker. While campaigning in the last election, she was shot at and now fearful that fewer women will participate in the 2019 elections as a result of violence.
“If there are no disincentives for the perpetrators of violence, my fear is that the political space for women is going to continue to shrink,” she told Reuters.
Apart from violence and late-night meetings, women politicians are not also spared from nasty comments and threat from male colleagues. It leaves nothing to say that the Nigeria parliament is not always free of squabbles and intrigues as there have been a number of occasions where law federal lawmakers have engaged in fisticuffs on the floor of the House.
Women challenging the system with no wins
Politics in Nigeria has been dominated by the rich and powerful, with men ensuring their continued influence. With more than 80% of the nation’s resources concentrated in the hands of a few who dictate who gets elected into what position, there is no gainsaying the fact that the political space in Nigeria has shrunk for women. In a nation where interests within the big political parties are extremely powerful, exerting stranglehold in on elected officers and the people they are supposed to serve, it is not surprising that men would continue to consolidate their positions by fencing out their female counterparts from the mainstream political activities where real power lies.
Born on the March 2, 1955, Remi Sonaiya was the only female presidential aspirant in the 2015 elections. A professor of French Language and Applied Linguistics, the Cornell University-trained academic voluntarily retired from the Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife in 2010 to devote time to public affairs and development interest. She ran on the platform of the smaller Kowa Party, premising her campaign on a manifesto of a “New Nigeria, social welfare and modernism”.
 “It is time that somebody ordinary, a true representative of the people ran for president,” she said at the time. Even with the good intuitions and articulation of clear roadmap for the development of the country, she was only able to gather 13,078, against the 15,424,921 votes which nailed victory for president Buhari.
On account of her qualification and experience as a lawyer-cum development-consultant, Ayisha Osori, is best suited for the post of a parliamentarian. Frustrated that women were not running for political office, she made an assiduous attempt to clinch the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ticket to run for the House of Representatives seat for the MAX/Bwari constituency in Abuja in 2014. But the experience only served to confirm the base theories that politics in Nigeria is not designed for people with genuine interest in public service.
In a chat The Nation, Osori revealed that the biggest obstacle to women winning election in Nigeria is the unfair and undemocratic party process.
“It does matter how much a woman might be wanted by the constituency she wants to serve. What matters is the structure of the party and how they are designed by those who fund the party, because they choose the candidates. That, to me, is the biggest obstacle,” she said in a tone of finality.
Osori, also raised the point that the ethos surrounding Nigerian politics, which is often centered ‘hunting’ and ‘sharing’, debars women from aspiring for power in Nigeria’s governance space. On her resolve not throw in her weight for an elective position in 2019, she said: “I am not running because I am scared but because the process is fraudulent, and I am not the kind of person who wants to win in a fraudulent process. I would rather spend my energy trying to ensure the processes is fair and transparent”.
The former CEO of the Nigerian Women Trust Fund has documented her experience in a book titled, Love Does Not Win Election, which she describes as a manual for rookie politicians.
A system at odds with its women
Nigeria’s pre-colonial era is replete with the history of women who held kingdoms and subdued oppression. In the memoir, Ake, nobel laureate Wole Soyinka wrote of how women negated the draconian rule of a monarch in connivance with colonial masters. In other parts of the country, women were known to have occupied very influential political offices, including the highest political office (the King or the Oba) among the Yorubas; female individuals such as the Iyalode of Ibadan, Efunsetan Aniwura, Moremi of Ile-Ife, Queen Amina of Zaria, have held power position in pre-colonial history, research has shown.
For close observers of Nigerian history, the question to ask is at what point did women become sidelined in political power?
“The real African tradition respect its men and women,” said Olabisi Aina, a Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun state, who maintained that the dwindling power space for women aspirants in Nigeria was an arrogation of the colonial masters
“The kind of kingdom that was run is what we call complementarity; they are not fighting each other nor looking for power from each other. When the colonial masters came, the ingredient that would have allowed women to be part of the political practice was never given to them,” Aina, a gender study expert said.
“For the British during the Victorian Era, all the money that the man had was used to decorate the woman to showcase wealth, so what you showcased was the way your wives and children dressed. As Africans, we did not have a tradition where woman didn’t work so what we think is our tradition was not our tradition.
“There was never a tradition in which the African man leaves his wife at home and goes to the farm; they were together at the farm working. They were both in the palace discussing the affairs of the state. The separation was when you first give education to the man and you didn’t give education to the woman until later. And when you give education to the woman, it was different from the one given to the man,” she stated.
Aina further said that British colonialists who came from the Victorian era recruited African male into colonial civil service, enshrining a practice which gave African male gender undue advantage over their opposite sex and thus marked the beginning of women under-representation in formal agencies of government.
Playing the Intellectual Card
The present political arrangement appears to be a disservice to women. This came into the fore in 2016 when a bill to foster gender equality, presented by Senator Biodun Olujimi, a female senator representing Ekiti was shut down with loud cries of “nay!”. The men who led the upper chamber shut down the bill which sought to erode discrimination in areas of marriage, divorce, education, employment opportunities, ownership of property and inheritance citing religion and tradition.
In crisis-ridden southern Kaduna, Ndi Kato, a young activist and advocate, has been championing reforms and compensation for the marginalized people of southern Kaduna. The graduate of the University of Jos, who runs the Dinidari Foundation, was inspired to run for political offices as a result of the crisis in her region and the inability of the government of the day to provide solutions.
“You need power to do the things you will need to do. Otherwise you will be left playing the intellectual card or writing books on things that you can actually help solve. I also feel that politics is for good people, so it is unwise for me to fold my hands and watch people that are unqualified rule while I do nothing about it. These are my reasons for participating in politics,” she told The Nation over the phone.
Kato, who is running for a seat in the Kaduna State House of Assembly on the platform of the PDP, is optimistic that her ambition would further help to inspire girls in the region where there are presently no women in the legislature.
Contesting in a party system where party primaries often involve a lot of lobbying and money politics, it’s left to be seen how far the 27-year-old young lady with a determined posture would go.
Reporting done with the support of CodeforNigeria’s Naija Data Ladies programme
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Women professionals relive bitter-sweet experiences in farming
When Damilola Titilola dumped the wig and black gown for life in a pigpen as a farmer in the animal husbandry sector, she never anticipated the length to which her ingenuity would be tested. A Law graduate from the University of Bedfordshire, UK, she went into livestock farming in 2015 starting with commercial sales. Operating in Nigeria’s agriculture sector is like walking on a landmine filled with banana peels. For women, it would take an uncommon nerve and temerity to survive the terrain.
“People see that you are a young lady and they feel they can exploit you”, the 26-year-old lady told The Nation. Having to deal with workers older than her age and some of them male; Damilola whose Tadneous Farm rears livestock, including cows, cattle, goats and other domestic animals, has had to deal with the challenge of getting committed workers on her farm site located in Akinyele Local Government Area in Ibadan, West Africa’s biggest city. She also contends with the challenge of poor infrastructure as roads leading to the farm are in bad shape.
26 year old Damilola, a barrister stands by the door of her livestock farm in Akinyele, Ibadan. Her dream is to expand into an agritourist centre
“Transporting feeds to the farm is very stressful and when there is fuel scarcity, the cost of transportation doubles. Again, there is the issue with government policies which most times are largely inconsistent,” she uttered.
As a young girl, Damilola confessed to being fascinated with the idea of owning a cattle ranch. Now that her dream is nearing reality, she has had to make personal sacrifice in the pursuit of her vision. Called to the Nigerian Bar in 2014, she worked for a year to gather capital. With the money garnered from her savings and support from family and friends, she launched fully last year, going beyond dealing in the commercialization of livestock to setting up a ranch where these animals are reared.
Her typical day starts at dawn as she heads to the farm by 7: 30 am to tend to the animals. “I start with cleaning the pig pens and feeding the animals. I don’t leave my workers alone to do the work because most times, I am not satisfied with what they do, so I have to dive in myself”. Her dream in the future is to expand Tadneous into an agritourist farm, where young Nigerians can be encouraged to see a future in animal husbandry that stretches beyond a boring routine and dirty works. She aims this vision comes into fruition in the next five years.
Aside working on the farm, Damilola shares her time with charity work in the Ibadan environs. One major lesson she always harps on, to interested persons is the fact that animal husbandry requires patience as the animals would need to be nurtured before profit starts yielding. “If you have a dream, just go through with it. It could be challenging but nothing good comes easy. I thought I would need a lot of money to start but N2m can set up something”, she intoned.
Asked if she is considering accessing loan to expand her business, she said: “I made up my mind I was not going to take any loan yet. But from what I have heard from other friends, access to loan can be quite difficult”.
About 75 percent of women account for the farming population in Nigeria, according to statistics from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. A larger percentage of these women often have to contend with socio-economic factors such as low income and access to infrastructure.
Post-harvest Losses and the Courage to Start Again
Chitola Roberts-Agbaje represents the face of Nigerian women farmers who have had to rise from the burden orchestrated by postharvest losses. She converted her 14 acres plantain field to a mushroom farm after suffering a post-harvest loss estimated at N420, 000. In 2017, she watched dejectedly as harvested plantains rot away after a driver failed to show up because the vehicle broke down. A motor cycle could not be arranged owing to the bad condition of the road leading to her Ayepe, Ogun state farm location.
An agropreneur and advocate, Agbaje veered off from a background in PR/Communications after reading about the plight of rural women farmers. Setting up the Women in Agriculture and Sustainability Initiative, she set out to empower women farmers by organizing trainings and trade fairs for rural women involved in farming. Now the founder of the Mushroom Development Foundation in Nigeria, she is also involved in teaching rural women on the best techniques for mushroom farming. The NGO is working with the Mushroom Development Foundation in India by partnering on the latest method of growing mushroom, especially as the Nigerian climate is suitable for mushroom cultivation.
“When it rains, these women go to farm but during the dry season, they go into mushroom farming and they are able to make money to better themselves”, she said.
Agbaje believes one vital way of empowering women in agriculture is to create a value chain by curbing post-harvest losses.
“These are some of the things I think government should look into. Post-harvest losses is still very much of a problem. if we don’t curb it, it would be difficult to do sustainable farming”. Agbaje believes things are looking up for the Nigerian agriculture sector, as women are acquiring farm lands and government is working on credit facilitates for farmers. However, she is quick to point out the bottlenecks experienced with regulatory agencies as a factor working against the value chain for female agropreneurs.
“There is no clear-cut regulation for agriculture, what you find is a blanket regulation.
The requirement I will need to set up a pure water factory would not be the same to set up a vegetable processing plant but NAFDAC’s regulatory requirements makes it difficult for small scale businesses to thrive, hence the problem of post-harvest losses”, Agbaje stated.
About 50 per cent of farmers’ labour on food supply is abruptly devoured by losses largely arising from poor storage infrastructure, transportation and in some cases, methodologies of harvesting.
Cries of rural women farmers
With Nigeria’s population projected to be the third biggest in the world by 2050, the possibility of meeting the growing food security needs of the populace appears blurry. Out of 79 million hectares of arable land, only 32 million (i.e., 46 per cent) is under cultivation. Another sad reality lamented by agricultural researchers is that Nigeria also has less than 10 per cent of its arable land under irrigation. Small-scale holder farmers form over 75 per cent and these smallholder farmers hold less than two hectares of land per household.
Women farmers who account 75 per cent of the workforce make up the least percentage of people economically active in agriculture. In Idofa, a sleepy community in Imeko- Afon local government Area, Ogun West, women farmers are practically feeding from hand to mouth, as they battle with crude methods of farming.
Known mainly for growing cassava, female farmers in the community are forced to work with their bare hands as a constituency project which ought to see to the construction of a cassava processing plant with machine installation, has not seen the light of the day. Executed by the ministry of Women Affairs, the project with a budgeted amount of N25,000,000 lies in a state of abandonment.
“Our women use palms to smoke cassava. Our backs are aching, and the harvest is small compared to the effort we put in”, Alice Aremu, the woman leader of Idofa community lamented to The Nation.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, agriculture is underperforming because half of its farmers—women—do not have equal access to the resources and opportunities they need to be more productive. Also, access to good quality farmland, a pervasive problem for smallholder farmers in Nigeria is a challenge particularly felt by female farmers.
In an integrated household survey on Agriculture, conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics in 2016, data on land tenure arrangements for households engaged in farming activities revealed that men are more favoured to own land for agricultural purposes. Yet, the State of Food and Agriculture 2010–2011, reports that if women had the same access to productive resources as men, they could increase yields on their farms by 20–30 percent. This in turn could raise total agricultural output in developing countries by 2.5–4 percent, thus reducing the number of hungry people in the world by 12–17 percent.
Closing the gender gap in agriculture is a win for the agricultural sector and the Nigerian society at large.
This story was made possible with support from Code for Nigeria via the Naija Data Ladies programme
‘Titilola Vivour-Adeniyi is the coordinator of the Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team (DSVRT). The team was set up in 2012 to respond to issues of rape, domestic violence and child abuse. In this encounter with HANNAH OJO, she speaks on factors fueling abuse of minors.
Is your office engaging in activities geared towards sensitizing the boy child on sexual abuse?
This year, we are bringing more attention to the issue because last year, we carried out a research and the result showed how 85 percent of those abused as minors grew up to abuse children later in life. The result of the research has influenced the way we engage children in our advocacy as we are now insisting that the focus should not be on girls alone but on boys as well. No gender is immune to sexual violence. People used to think that it’s only girls that could be defiled but it’s not true. Boys can also be sexually abused as data has shown. When you have data, it helps to strategize awareness and propose policies that are structured to the needs of the society.
Your data shows there have been cases of sexual violence in places like Alimosho and Kosofo, is it right to say that these cases happen more in low income areas?
We aggregate our data to the 20 local governments in the state but there are some local governments that are densely populated like Alimosho and Kosofe, so it should not come as a surprise to see a lot of cases in those areas. It doesn’t mean that it’s only those areas that these vices are being committed. Perhaps it is also because of our awareness in those areas that these vices are being reported. After the awareness, we see an increase in reportage, but I wouldn’t say that it is only in low income areas because sexual and gender violence is not a respecter of class or creed, religion or gender. It can happen to anybody.
Apart from the excuse of poverty and depression, what other factors are fueling sexual violence?
According to the data gathered from our research, the first factor is the abused abuser factor. Another factor was that some people said they had poor performance with their peers –this is real data. Some said it was as a result of poor erectile dysfunction and they were tempted because the children obviously would not laugh at them. However, it is important to state that some people actually make it easier for children to be defiled. The idea of leaving children with neigbours is condemnable. Parents are not supposed to leave their precious jewels with any kind of person. Perpetrators don’t just pounce on children, they groom them. They gain their trust, get their confidence and it can start with something so basic but you will be amazed what that can do to a child over a period of time. Some people will say why didn’t the child speak up? It’s because the child did not know better and that is the danger we have in sexual violence. Society most times often blame the victim, even when it is a child. These are the things perpetrators take advantage of and use to groom children.
It is often said that many victims of sexual violence are often discouraged from pressing charges as a result of delayed justice?
The testimony of the child must be corroborated; that is why we ensure that the police conducts proper investigation and that is what has informed our engagement with the Nigerian Police Force in terms of training, empowering and equipping the force with relevant materials. That is one of the reasons why we have relevant support units across 11 divisions in the state. When it comes to legal issue, you cannot be emotional and sentimental, it is facts that can be proved and the evidence. That is why the police is critical because they are the first respondent. There are also the role medical officers play; if a survivor presents himself early, it is very likely that evidence can be preserved and that will help aid investigations.
A DNA lab was launched in November, it is at Odulami Street in order to help victims of sexual violence to able to preserve evidence and ensure justice. In the DPP, we also have the Sexual Offence Unit dedicated to addressing these issues. At the High Court, we have the sexual offence and domestic violence court, so we expect that we start to see an increase in the number of cases that get to court as well as an increase in conviction. We will also start to see a reduction in the time it takes to prosecute these cases.
Since you have been the coordinator, can you recall the most pathetic case you have handled?
All cases are bad, especially when it involves children because they are vulnerable. Who is supposed to have prevented them? Who is supposed to have ensured that it did not happen? It is the adults. Those are the pathetic cases, especially when it is obvious that these cases could have been prevented if different safe-guarding measures were put in place. When an abuse happens to a child, it means that secondary care givers have failed in their responsibility.
As the ugly specter of child defilement continues to fester, data is beginning to show that predators of child molestation were often abused sexually as boys. A research conducted by the Lagos State Domestic Violence Response Team, led by a team of experts, including a clinical psychologist, social worker and a criminologist, for inmates serving terms on sexual molestation and child defilement at the Ikoyi Prisons and Maximum and Medium Prisons located in Apapa shows that many of the accused were sexually molested while growing up.
The data gathered through analysis from semi-structured interviews and questionnaires from 131 male sex offenders with participants aged 18 and above drawn from different local government areas of Lagos State, revealed that 80.9 percent of inmates were abused as a child, an indication that they had become sexually active at an early age. The data further shows that some inmates lost their virginity to family members and older acquaintances who took advantage of them during their early teenage years.
Titilola Vivour-Adeniyi, the young dutiful lawyer coordinating the Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team (DSVRT), believes the recent sentence of a 21-year jail-term handed to an elderly man accused of sodomizing a young boy is a significant layer for the gender dynamics in the war against child defilement.
“That case opened five years ago, even though the wheel of justice was slow, we finally got justice,” she said, raising her head to confirm the dateline of the casefile from the calendar pasted on the wall of her office located at the Lagos State Ministry of Justice, Alausa, Ikeja.
“We continue to do advocacy around the girl-child, but we must not forget the boy child because statistics have shown that these same boys grow up to be abusers. We have to strike the balance by advocating for the boy-child the way we advocate for the girl child”, she said.
In a 2015 survey conducted by the National Population Commission of the Federal Government on violence against children, data shows that one in four boys experience sexual violence before the age of 13. Also, 69.2% of victimized boys experience multiple incidents of sexual abuse.
Explaining the abused abuser factor, Dr Boladale Mapayi, a clinical psychologist at the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, Ile-Ife, affirmed that the abused abuser factor in child defilement is a reality. “Abuse is often bred by fear. This is also true for bullying where a number of bullies were also bullied as children and with children who are raised in a home where there is intimate partner violence, they are more likely to experience violence in their adult relationships”.
Mapayi, also a lecturer/consultant psychiatrist further said that the concept of the abused abuser stems from various theories which include reacting to an earlier trauma where some abused individuals use the defence mechanisms of displacement or externalization by blaming problems on another.
“This makes it more likely for abused children to become perpetrators in the future in trying to deal with their own experience. The trend can only be less likely when an abused child gets the right intervention. It is important to stress that parents must never assume that a child is too young to understand abuse or that if it is not discussed, the child will forget. Parents must seek professional intervention with well-trained psychiatrists and clinical psychologists,” she asserted.
Studies have also shown that the abused abuser factor could be prompted in individuals attempting to master an earlier trauma. A child who has been socialized into abuse may begin to think that abuse is ‘normal’, especially given a scenario where intervention is not sought.
In most African societies, boys are taught to mask their pain and not show any sign of weakness. This tradition has encouraged a culture of silence, where boys suffer sexual abuse in silence, and as such not privy to intervention and therapy from care givers.
“The boy-child is born vulnerable because of societal constraints of masculinity and its associated stereotypes. These stereotypes make it less likely for boys to report abuse, so we must help the boy-child to live without these stereotypes. Children must be empowered with information about all types of abuse as early as possible. There are age appropriate materials that we can use (parents can google ‘pantisorius’ for example)”, Mapayi said in response to a question on how the society can better engage the boy child in the prevention of sexual violence.
‘Masculinity must be separated from control and violence’, Mapayi intoned, as she admonished parents to minimize abuse opportunity by limiting the numbers of carers around children. Also, patterns such as sudden refusal to change clothes, inappropriate sexual knowledge and behaviors, abnormal fears about bodily functions as well as symptoms of depression/anxiety are signs to likely sexual abuse for male children.
A Rising Tide of evil
Since opening in July 2013, the Mirabel Centre, a Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC) in Lagos which provides medical and psychosocial services on sexual assault and rape has treated a total of 3,202 cases as at January 2018. From August 2015, the number of sexual violence victims thronging the centre rose sporadically and the centre now attends averagely to 70 to 80 clients a month. The figure shot to 111 in November 2017. Majority of the victims fall within the age bracket of 0 to 17 years, boys included.
Speaking on the increasing trend of child defilement as well as other forms of sexual violence, Vivour-Adeniyi, whose agency also works in collaboration with the Mirabel centre disclosed that the increase in number of reportage is an indication of increased awareness.
“People are now speaking up, aware of the fact that these offences are committed against the state. People are also whistle-blowing, provided that their anonymity is not disclosed. People are also more aware available support services, and this is helped by the fact that there is a political will in Lagos to fight the menace,” she asserted.
In the research carried out by DSVRT whose data indicated the abused abuser trend as a cause of the rise in sexual violence, Vivour-Adeniyi disclosed that most of the respondents equated defilement to stealing; an indication that society has a skewed view of the seriousness of sexual offences.
“Some of them thought fingering a child is not a big deal but fingering a minor also attracts life imprisonment. Penetration need not be by the male or female organ, it can be anything that is inserted into the opening of another person.”
Condemning the attitude of the society which pleads forgiveness for perpetrators of sexual, the DSVRT bemoaned instances where parents of abused children pull out of cases even when such had been tabled before the Directorate of Public Persecution.
She said: “Perhaps it’s the length of time it takes to get justice. Perhaps it is the pressure exerted on them but there are policies in place to ensure that we begin to see an increase in the number of cases that get to court as well as an increase in conviction.”
Harrowing Cases of Child Defilement
Before the news of a two-year, 11 months-old allegedly defiled by Adegboyega Adenekan, a 47-year-old supervisor at Chrisland School became a subject of public debate; many stories of harrowing sexual defilements had occurred, fanning fears that Nigeria may be evolving into a sexual abuse case basket.
In February 2017, a 20-year-old cobbler Kingsley Philip pleaded not guilty to the charge of fingering his neighbour’s five-year-old daughter in Idimu, a suburb in Lagos. It was reportedly said that vaginal discharges from the child alerted her mother to the sexual assault.
In Taraba, a 55-year-old man simply identified as Dansale, raped a seven-month-old stepchild in Katsina, drugging his wife to sleep while the heinous act occurred. The mother was said to have woken to blood stains around the baby’s private parts. Believing the cause of the blood stain to be a case of pile as Dansale suggested, a visit to the hospital proved otherwise, making the elderly man the prime suspect in the baby’s rape case.
Another pathetic case of child defilement happened when in March last year a 45-year-old man allegedly turned to his three-year-old stepdaughter to satisfy his sexual urges because the wife refused him sex. It was reported that despite the presence of blood and semen on the baby, the victim denied the accusations.
Child defilement is not always an old men affair as a 14-year-old teenager was also reported to have raped a seven-year-old in by breaking into the toilet where the victim was relieving herself in Bariga, an urban slum in Lagos. Physically challenged minors are also a major target for child defilers as a deaf girl in Ogun State was also raped in a bush in Obafemi-Owode, Ogun State by one Nurudeen a 20-year-old.
Reporting made possible with support from CodeforNigeria
