The year 2015 is gradually coming to an end. For many, this is time to count their blessings and losses. For the womenfolk, it was a year that witnessed the good, the bad, as well as the ugly. As you take a cursory look, you also find some women who set the pace, changed records and made remarkable strides on the local and international scenes. Yetunde Oladeinde (Assistant Editor) and Gboyega Alaka unveil these women and the things that made them stand out.
One woman that caused a big stir in the political scene this year is Aisha Alhassan. Her recent proclamation as winner of the 2015 governorship election in Taraba State has attracted varied reactions from across the country, more so as she gets the enviable position of the first woman to be elected governor in the history of Nigeria.
The tribunal sitting in Abuja had nullified the election of Governor Darius Dickson Ishaku of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) during the April 11, 2015 election and declared Senator Aisha Jummai Alhassan of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the duly elected governor in the state.
Although she has been sworn in as Minister of Women Affairs just days earlier, Alhassan, fondly called Mama Taraba, is most likely to resume duties at the Government House, Jalingo, seat of the Taraba State government, if the Appeal Court upholds the judgment of the Taraba State Elections Petitions Tribunal.
Interestingly, Alhassan has had a series of other ‘firsts’ attached to her career, having been the first female to contest a leadership position in the Students’ Union Government at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in 1978; she later became the first female acting president of the union.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Over the years, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche has received accolades and recognition for standing out in the literary world. This year, she added another feather to her crowded cap, with the Baileys Prize as its ‘Best of the Best’.
During the year, Half of a Yellow Sun was named the best winner from the last decade of the women’s prize for fiction.
Adichie’s book competed with nine other titles that include Zadie Smith’s On Beauty to Eimear McBride’s A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing. At the end of the contest, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel on the Biafran war, Half of a Yellow Sun, emerged as the best winner of the women’s prize for fiction of the last decade – by both the public and a 10-man strong judging panel.
The award, now known as the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, chose to mark its 20th anniversary by asking the chairs of judges of the past 10 years – including Joanna Trollope, Shami Chakrabarti and Daisy Goodwin – to pick their ‘best of the best’ winner from the last decade. Andrea Levy’s Small Island, which won the award in 2004, had previously been named the “Best of the Best” novel in the prize’s first decade.
Adichie said she had “a lot of respect for the books that have won [the award] in the past 10 years and also for the books that have been shortlisted.”
“This is a prize I have a lot of respect and admiration for – over the years it’s brought wonderful literature to a wide readership that might not have found many of the books,” said the novelist. “I feel I am in very good company. To be selected as ‘Best of the Best’ of the past decade is such an honour. I’m very grateful and very happy.”
Kemi Adeosun
Within the financial sector today, the name that readily comes to mind is Kemi Adeosun, the current Finance Minister. As soon as her name was mentioned, the rumour mills went agog with many wondering if she was the right person for the job. However, when she stepped out in the senate to talk about her plans for the sector, it was obvious that the lady certainly knows her onions.
Her antecedents also speak volumes. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the University of East London and a Postgraduate Diploma in Public Financial Management from the University of London. She then commenced her career as an Accounting Assistant at the British Telecom Company, London, from 1989 till 1990, after which she moved to Goodman Jones, London, working as a Senior Audit Officer from 1990 till 1993.
She became Manager of Internal Audit at London Underground Limited, London and Prism Consulting from 1994 till 2000, before joining Price Waterhouse Coopers, London as Senior Manager from 2000 till 2002. In 2002, Adeosun became Financial Controller at Chapel Hill Denham Management and, subsequently, Managing Director in 2010. After working with Quo Vadis Partnership as Managing Director in 2010 and 2011, she was appointed Commissioner of Finance in Ogun State from 2011 till 2015.
Linda Ikeji
This year, super blogger Linda Ikeji stole the show online. The writer, former model and entrepreneur, best known for her controversial publications and her media contributions to the development of the Nigerian entertainment industry, continued expanding her horizon in a unique way. The celebrity blogger recently played host to a few of her friends at a house-warming party at her multi-million naira mansion in Banana Island, Ikoyi, Lagos.
Controversy about the source of the money used for purchasing her Banana Island mansion estimated to have cost a whopping N600 million also dominated the scene this year.
Ibukun Awosika
During the year, Mrs. Ibukun Abiodun Awosika became the new Board Chairperson of First Bank, Nigeria’s second largest lender. She took over the helm of affairs from Prince Ajibola Afonja, who retired. This appointment makes Awosika the first woman to assume this position since the establishment of the bank in 1894.
Just before this appointment, Awosika who has a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Ife was a non-Executive Director of the bank.
Awosika is an alumna of the Chief Executive Programmes of Lagos Business School and the Global Executive MBA Programme of the prestigious IESE Business School, Barcelona, Spain.
She started her career as an Audit Trainee during her National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) at Akintola Williams & Co (now Deloitte). After her NYSC, she moved to Alibert Nigeria Ltd, a furniture company where she worked as a Showroom Manager for three months. She resigned from Alibert Nigeria Ltd at the age of 25 to begin her entrepreneurship journey. She started her own furniture-manufacturing company, Quebees Ltd, that later evolved to The Chair Centre Ltd.
Ibukun Awosika also sits on the board of several other companies, among which are Cadbury Nigeria Plc, Digital Jewels Ltd and Convention on Business Integrity. She is also the Chairman, Board of Trustees of Women in Management and Business (WIMBIZ), as well as Chairman of Intermac, organisers of SmartCard Conference in Nigeria.
Aisha Muhammadu Buhari
Her photographs before, during the political campaigns and after the election graced the pages of magazines, newspapers and television. Simple and beautiful, Aisha Muhammadu Buhari stepped out gracefully as the wife of Muhammadu Buhari, the President of the Federal republic of Nigeria, who assumed office on May 29, 2015 after defeating the then President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.
The cosmetologist and beauty therapist was born in Adamawa State, North-Eastern Nigeria. Her grandfather, Alhaji Muhammadu Ribadu, was Nigeria’s first Minister of Defence. Her father was a civil engineer while her mother is a descendant of the Ankali family, renowned farmers and textile giants.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Public Administration from the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), and a master’s degree in International Affairs and Strategic Studies from the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), Kaduna. She obtained a Diploma in Beauty Therapy from the Carlton Institute of Beauty Therapy, Windsor, United Kingdom and specialised in Permanent Make-up, Mesotherapy and Miocro-dermabrasion. She holds a Post-graduate Diploma in Cosmetology and Beauty from Academy Esthetique Beauty Institute of France. She is a member of the United Kingdom Vocational Training and Charitable Trust and the International Health and Beauty Council.
Mo Abudu
Mosunmola Abudu, popularly known as Mo Abudu, literally took over the film industry when she premiered her movie titled Fifty this year. The package which featured Ireti Doyle, Dakore Egbuson-Akande, Omoni Oboli and Nse Ikpe-Etim was directed by Biyi Bandele with Mo Abudu as the executive producer.
Fifty had its London Film Festival premiere in October, and critics say the production is Mo Abudu’s quest to showcase African women coming of age, vis a vis aspirations and dilemmas faced by their contemporaries everywhere, while yet navigating traditions and obligations.
Set in Lagos, “a city of disproportionate and breathtaking contrasts,” Fifty celebrates the pulse and energy of this fast developing metropolis and explores the diversities and complexities of its colourful people through the lenses of its women.
The energetic talk show host, TV producer, media personality, human resources management consultant, entrepreneur and philanthropist has been described by Forbes as “Africa’s Most Successful Woman.”
Amina J Mohammed
For close watchers of government operations in Nigeria, the name Amina J Mohammed, Honourable Minister of Environment, may not be a strange one after all. Aside being one of the six women that made President Muhammed Buhari’s ministerial list and scaled the senate screening hurdle, Mohammed comes with an incredibly loaded CV, having impressed in several other endeavours.
The latest on her list of exploits before coming home to be minister was her role as Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon on post-2015 development planning. In that capacity, she acted as the link between the Secretary-General, his High Level Panel of eminent persons (HPL), and the General Assembly’s Open Working Group (OWG) amongst others.
Before taking up that appointment, Ms Mohammed had served as founder and CEO of the centre for development Policy Solutions and as an Adjunct Professor for the Master’s in Development Practice Program at Columbia University. She had also worked as Senior Special Assistant on Millennium Development Goals, serving three Nigerian Presidents (Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’a dua and Goodluck Jonathan) over a six-year period in the process. Between 2002 and 2005, she coordinated the Task Force on Gender Education for the Millenium Project; while in 2005, she was charged with the co-ordination of Nigeria’s debt relief funds towards the achievement of the MDGs.
For her activities in the Nigerian public sector, Mohammed was recently described by American fashion and lifestyle magazine Vogue, as “a public sector strategist involved in crafting and implementing fiscal projects aimed at fighting poverty in Nigeria.”
She was also amongst the 13 women photographed by the magazine for a feature story on the role of women in the ongoing UN climate change conference.
Mohammed was also CEO and founder, Think Tank Centre for Development Policy Solutions. Her appointment as minister is therefore another high point, expected to avail her more opportunity to bring her wealth of experience to bear on her own country, helping the new President Buhari-led government to achieve its much-touted change mantra.
Born in 1961 of a Nigerian father from Gombe and a British mother, Amina Mohammed also founded Afri-Projects Consortium, a multidisciplinary firm of engineers and quantity surveyors, serving as Executive Director. She also worked with architectural engineering firm, Archon Nigeria in association with Norman and Dawbarn, UK.
Asisat Oshoala
In a year that is rolling by rather quietly for Nigeria’s sportswomen, football player, Asisat Oshoala stands out with the highest achievement and impression.
First she clinched a coveted spot in January in the star-studded Liverpool FC female team, to the delight of family, friends, fans and Nigeria’s Football Federation; and though the amount of that contract was ‘undisclosed,’ one could be rest assured that the 20-year old football talent had negotiated herself into the elite group of female footballers, and away from poverty of local football.
A few weeks before that, the former Rivers Angels striker had earlier been named African Women Player of the year by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) for the year 2014, following her exceptional performance for her club and country that year.
With club, she had won the Nigerian Professional Women’s Football League title in 2014 (having also won it in 2013); while she and her colleagues in the national team stunned the world at the 2014 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in France, finishing as runners-up behind Germany. Her performance at that tournament and at the African Women’s Championship, where Nigeria won her seventh African Women Championship title earlier, contributed to her emerging as CAF female footballer of the year. For her performance, she was also named Most Valuable Player at both tournaments.
Her highest point in the outgoing year would however be her emergence as the inaugural BBC Women’s Footballer for the 2014/2015 season in May.
To underline the quality and value of the award, Oshoala won it ahead of Veronica Boquete (Spain and FFC Frankfurt) Nadine Kessler (Germand andVFL Wolfsburg), Kim Little (Scotland and Seattle Reign FC) and Marta (Brazil and FC Rosengard).
But for playing in a group of death that included Sweden, USA and Australia and generally posting a poor run as a team, pundits are of the opinion that Oshoala would have again distinguished herself at the FIFA Women’s World Cup, as she scored a brilliant individual goal in the opening 3-3 draw against Sweden at the Women’s World Cup in Canada. Injury also stopped her from featuring at the Olympic qualifiers, inadvertently giving arch-rivals, Equatorial Guinea a lee-way to clinch the ticket at Nigeria’s expense.
Omoni Oboli
Wikipedia sums up Omoni Oboli’s personae as ‘actress, scriptwiter and producer. Perfect? No, as the online encyclopaedia forgot to include the tag, ‘movie director’.’
She loves directing, she told a glossy lifestyle magazine in a recent interview; adding that directing means being able to give my script my DNA.” She directed her latest and rave-making film, First Lady, which she is very proud of and which recently premiered in the United Kingdom and across Nigeria with much pomp. First Lady has been described as’a comic drama with compelling storylines backed with impressive acting.’
Aside the film, which stars top acts like Joseph Benjamin, Alexx Ekubo, Yvonnne Jegede, Chinedu Ikedieze, Anthony Monjaro and Omoni Oboli herself; another high point for Oboli was being named The Sun Nollywood Personality of the Year 2015.
The Delta Born French graduate of the University of Benin, who kick-started her thespian career with a cameo role in the urban telling ‘Not My Will’ as far back as 1996 has certainly seen it all. Over the years, she has also garnered awards and recognitions. In 2010, she won the Best Actress – Narrative Feature at the Los Angeles Movie Awards, and the award for Best Actress at the Harlem International Film Festival. She was also nominated for the Best Actress in a Leading Role award at the 2014 ELOY Awards, for her movie, Being Mrs Elliot.
Omoni Oboli was also unveiled in the year as Nunu milk brand ambassador, in a renewed Nutricima campaign to encourage mothers to fortify their kids with milk for adequate mental growth, enabling them ‘Grow Everyday’.
Born in Benin and raised on the grounds of the Delta Steel Company (DSC) in Aladja, Delta State, Omoni started acting with big time Nollywood movie stars in her first year in the university.
Yemi Alade
Afro-pop sensation, Yemi Eberechi Alade burst onto the Nigerian music scene in 2009 when she won the Peak Talent Show. But her hit song, ‘Jonny” sealed it for her, catapulting her into the galaxy amongst the stars of Nigeria, and indeed African music.
In no time, she has amassed several nominations, awards and recognitions both locally and on the international scene.
Her highest point in the year 2015 would be her emergence as Best Female Act in the MTV African Music Awards. She also got a nomination in the BET Awards in the Best International Act, Africa category, along with Wizkid, both of them losing the award to Stonebwoy from Ghana.
In 2014, she also got nominations as Female Artiste of the Year in the Nigerian Entertainment Awards; Female Artist of the Year at the City People Entertainment Awards and Best African Act at the MOBO Awards.
In 2013, her potentials as a new act was also recognised by ELOY Awards, which nominated her as the Most Promising Female act in 2013.
Before her Peak Talent Show feat, Alade had featured in an all-girls group called Noty Spices in 2005. But her hit song, Jonny, produced by Selebobo and leaked to the internet in 2013, dominated music charts in Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa,Liberia, Uganda, Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom, and remains till date one of the best songs of 2013.
She also headlined the Super Diva’s Nite at the 2013 Calabar Festival, and opened performances at the 2013 Headies Awards.
Her first album, King of Queens was released on October 2, 2014.
Born in 1989 in Abia State, to a Yoruba father and Igbo mother, Yemi Alade graduated from the University of Lagos with a degree in Geography.
Dr Ibilola Amao
Dr Ibilola Amao, Principal Consultant, at Lonadek has for two decades been in the forefront of youth empowerment and development in the country targeted at Vision 20:20.
Amao’s Lonadek is an independent local content development organisation focused on building the capacity of Nigerians, Nigerian companies, businesses and vendors, in delivering quality goods and services in the oil and gas industry. Lonadek is therefore committed to the implementation of state-of-the-art Engineering IT solutions in the Oil and Gas industry by a highly skilled workforce and is driven by a passion to see more Nigerians excel and participate actively in High-Technology driven industries.
For twenty years, Amao has been preoccupied with her Vision 20:20 Youth Empowerment and Restorative Initiative, focusing especially on the oil and gas industry, where from experience, she had discovered that Nigeria lacks adequate manpower and potential to make any impact anytime soon, if something drastic was not done. For her, a situation where only foreigners dominate the very lucrative sector, at the expense of Nigerians was no longer acceptable.
This year’s edition, which held in May at the MUSON Centre, focused on career counselling, industry awareness and youth empowerment, and it was especially aimed at the most intelligent science technology, engineering and mathematics students from SS 1 to SS3, undergraduates and unemployed graduate, to catch a vision about creating value in information technology in Nigeria. The annual programme focuses on engendering and enterprise.
Amao once said that she was prompted to undertake this mission, when sometime in 2005, she sat at a panel with foreign expatriates to recruit Nigerians into the industry and discovered rather shamefully that otherwise brilliant Nigerians flopped woefully when questions that required them to think outside the box or apply the knowledge they had in a skilled manner were thrown at them.
Amao is UK-trained, having attended Manchester Business School, Bradford University and Queen Mary College, University of London. She holds a Ph.D in Computer-Aided-Design and Draughting and a First Class honours degree in Civil and Structural Engineering. Amao is chairperson for the industry Advisory Team, Lagos State Technical and Vocational Education Board; a Fellow of the Energy Institute (EI), UK, a chartered member of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE); a certified HR professional with the Chartered Institute of Personnel Managers (CIPM), a member of the Institute of directors programmes committee and coordinator of the Young Members & Graduate Empowerment at the Energy institute, UK, Lagos Branch.
Itoro Eze-Anaba
Itoro Eze-Anaba is to different people a saviour, a helper, a liberator and a defender. Her Mirabel Centre, founded in 2003 and located inside the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, Ikeja, is the first Sexual Assault Reform Centre in Nigeria, and second in the whole of West Africa. The centre offers medical examination and treatment of illnesses and injuries caused by assault, counsels victims, helps report cases to the police, offers legal information and refers victims to other agencies for help not provided by the centre – all for free.
As a legal practitioner, Itoro had set out in the year 2000, traversing Nigeria and lobbying to get the Domestic Violence Bill (DVB), which she had initiated, to be passed into law. In the course of that, she met a 14-year-old, who told her a story of how her father had sexually assaulting her since she was 11; and this prompted her to conceive something more urgent to attend to the ugly scourge, hence the Mirabel Centre. At the last count, the centre has received and attended to well over 650 patients/victims.
The centre is equipped with doctors and nurses, who are forensic medical examiners; and counselors, who have undergone training on sexual assault trauma confidentiality.
For her invaluable services, Itoro has been variously honoured. This, she was amongst the three women nominated for Vlisco’s 2015 Women’s Month Award, for being a trend-setter and for all her hardwork in the battle against rape and sexual assault in the country.
Itoro also established Blue Ribbon, the first ever all-male advocacy group campaigning for women’s rights in Nigeria
Dotun Akande
Dotun Akande, a banker, educator, initiator of the Patrick Speech and Language Centre and Pure Souls Learning Foundation for Children with Autism, this year emerged as the 2015 overall winner of the Vlisco award.
Wondering what gave her an edge over others and she replies this way: “It was the work that we did. Somebody nominated me, that is how it works. Then we went to the polls and people voted for me. Autism won, it’s not Dotun that won. Ever since I won the awards, I have been relishing. A lot has happened. They pamper me, do my makeup and bring fabrics and clothes for me. I look elegant and it’s been a beautiful experience. I have also met a lot of people in the process. I have met great people. I have met wonderful people doing great work in the things that you do.”
To have a total understanding of the issues, Akande had to go for training abroad and she is still attending courses. “I go out of my way to call friends abroad on updates and to clarify grey areas. I was in banking for 13years.” Apart from counselling and therapy, she has done some programmes, like the talent hunt concert, which is a yearly event. The inspiration came when her son was diagnosed with autism.
“We started in 2008 and started with the Centre for children with Autism before starting the Patrick’s Speech and Language Centre. My first memorable case was one little girl that came to the centre. We tried for over eight months to try to let her release her words. Then she was the first that started using words ‘like pass the ball’. She actually made a sentence and she is now in a regular school. She graduated to secondary school and her parents never left the shores of Nigeria, meaning that it is possible to get help here.”
