With Nnedinso Ogaziechi
It’s been a hundred years since women got the rights to vote and be voted for in democracies across the globe. However, even though there has been some progress in women’s political participation, it is not yet uhuru especially in developing nations like Nigeria.
The socio-religious patriarchal system still stand in the way of progress in ways that see leadership as a male entitlement.
However, the history of the legendary Amazons of Dahomey, the metaphor for female grit and bravery has been replicated in the pre-colonial Africa in the various legends of leadership in history, queens Idia, Moremi, Amina and other powerful women that took the bull of leadership by the horn. They excelled in both economic development and territorial security and expansions.
What was however remarkable with those legendary women was their courage and intuition and vision. They did not beg for leadership, they did not cry for 35% affirmative action, they went out, stuck together, worked with both men and women and achieved the socio-political and economic goals to the benefit of their communities and regions.
They literally took no prisoners. They met the men brawn for brawn and bravery for bravery. They realized early enough that power is taken and not given.
However, they worked with fellow women and men too but their trust on the ability of their ilk to succeed in leadership could only happen with a unified sense of purpose.
The Roundtable conversation this week included Hajia Fatima (Dongonyaro) Ali Mungono, a formost Northern politician and industrialist, an advocate for representative democracy and one of the Northern women that had been a pillar in the fight for women emancipation from religious, economic, social and political exclusions.
She was a delegate to the 1995 Beijing Conference that adopted the 35% affirmative action for women. She was a member of the United Nigeria Congress Party (UNCP) and fought seriously for the scrapping of ‘Women Wings’ in political parties because according to her, it had a certain subdued sense of exclusion and beggarliness to refer to women in the political party structure as ‘Wing’ when there was no men ‘Wing’.
She was a member of the Nigeria delegation to the 1985 Women Conference in Kenya that birthed the Better Life for Rural Women programme that was initiated during the Babangida administration by his late Mariyam Babangida, a programme that saw wives of governors then influencing their husbands to include projects that could cater better for the rural women who often do not have a voice.
As a female politician she believes that only women can work seriously for the general good of the nation and should not be intimidated into silence by the men who often surreptitiously pit the women against each other and claim that women are each other’s’ worst enemies.
She believes that women must endeavor to join political parties from inception and not continue waiting to be handed positions after the men have appropriated the most influential positions.
As the first woman in the UNCP board of Trustees, she was in a better position to influence the party constitutions at formation to include policies that would cater for women issues and concerns.
To her, women must take their seats at the table from the beginning and not wait to be handed positions by the men. It was from that position that she was able to remove ‘women wings’ and the women came to be on the same pedestal with the men.
According to her, “Women are nowings, they must be part of the whole political body”.
At the Constitutional Confab in 2014, Hajia Fatima still maintained that women have rights that must be protected through the resolutions at the conference.
Being one of the women who pushed for the establishment of the Ministry of Women affairs in Nigeria, she wants women to maximize the use of the ministry by making sure it is used for the advancement of the causes of women.
She traces back the formation of the Better Life For Rural Women Programme as a programme that was targeted at the welfare of the rural women which had a huge impact on the nation.
Ironically Hajia believes that the programme seems to have been better handled productively during the military era than in the civilian democracies.
She believes that should not be the case if the women are really concerned about the welfare of fellow women. As a former Vice president to the then National Council of Women Societies (NCWS) former President, Mrs. Emily Aig-Imokhuede, they tried to establish offices in all the states of the federation especially in the North so that the impact of the association would get to all the nooks and crannies of the country for the welfare of women.
She believes women can only progress by helping each other and using their voice for good. She identified the challenges women face politically in all the regions of Nigeria impacting their full participation in politics.
In the South East, the exploitation of the some parochial socio-cultural norms by the men especially the Ezes and Igwes who insist that women must not perform certain leadership roles stand out but the things seem to be changing a bit.
In the North, both socio-religious and economic problems affect the women from active participation. The South West environment seems to be the most liberal of the regions for women participation in politics.
However, a common denominator seems to be financial dependence but she believes women can come together and find a solution.
Professor Kate Omenugha, the Commissioner for Education in Anambra state has a PhD in Gender, Media and Cultural Studies and is concerned that women often shortchange themselves in aspiring for leadership positions politically.
The way some women raise their sons grooms them for the sense of entitlement to leadership. In the first place, women have to work more than ten times harder to be acknowledged.
However, she believes women must stand up for themselves politically by getting more active and taking their positions of authority with the only tool they have going for them, their integrity, diligence and commitment.
In a patriarchal society where the girl child is often groomed just to appeal to the husband and the boy given all the leverage to leadership, for things to change, women must own their spaces both socially and politically through keeping their eyes on the ball.
She recalls that as a child, she aspired to read law but was discouraged by a School principal father who felt then that she might not be able to get a suitor because men might be scared of her independence and assertive nature of lawyers. “I wish he is alive to see that I now have a louder voice without reading law” she said.
She has seen women raise their sons differently from their girls and this she even observed as a lecturer who with a predominance of females in her classes, always saw them seek out and select the boys no matter how incompetent as class Reps.
This wrong socializing has in her view affected the hunger for political participation by the women. According to her, men are always given what she calls “The Speaking Rights” and the voice of the women muted by forces thrown up by both genders.
Politics is about raising voices and being heard and as such parents especially mothers should begin to let the girl child speak up and out.
That is a good beginning. Women should begin to show up at political environments early enough. You notice the tokenism in politics where men monopolize all posts and may be just throw in one or two women. The ratio is not good for development she insists.
However, Prof. Omenugha points out another challenge for women. She believes that the few women in politics have not been good mentors as most of them revel in their ascension to the ‘class’ of male political elite and often have that vacuous arrogance of ‘belonging’ to the power bloc while neglecting to mentor younger ladies to step into their shoes.
She believes women politicians must lift other women up the political ladder instead of what is obtainable these days where they have this false sense of having ‘made it to the ‘male political kingdom’.
To Prof. Omenugha, voice is very important and a very vital tool for political participation. The girl-child must be given the validation to know that she can speak her mind, express her desires and achieve her set goals.
With that, she grows up squaring up with the men and gets her due in terms of leadership. Women must not always be led, they have the cerebral and intellectual capacity to lead either in elective or appointive positions.
Women to her must realize also that their integrity speaks for them anytime and refuse to be intimidated by male and female blackmail that always allege that any successful woman in any field slept her way up.
“Why is it that men are never accused of sleeping their way up”? All those are coercive tactics to get women to stay under the radar perpetually.
The women must re-strategize and realize that in politics, it’s a team work and must work with both men and women to succeed.
Female politicians must come down from their high horses and realize that a single broomstick cannot sweep clean, only a bunch can and so they must be less arrogant about their successes and mentor and groom other women too while working in unity with the men because development helps all genders.
The Roundtable dialogue continues…
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