Sometimes when I ponder issues, I discover that African women who lived before the colonial rule with its cultural imperialism were more independent and so achieved higher status than their modern counterparts.
Even though tax was central to the reasons for the Aba Women's Riot of 1929, the quest for inclusion was also a key demand as colonial masters appointed only men to various offices. After the commission of enquiry turned in their reports, the colonial administration began to include women. It is pertinent to note that wives of all the colonial officers were housewives. Therefore they did not think anything of our women. In contrast, African women were active in the society, held positions in the society, led market associations etc. An example of such women was Mrs Funmilayo Ransome Kuti who, in the late ‘40s, led Abeokuta women in what is now referred to as the Egba Women’s Tax Riots or the Abeokuta Women’s Revolt. Refusing to pay a discriminatory tax, thousands of women occupied the palace of Alake of Egbaland intermittently for 2 years and dethroned the then Alake. They also succeeded in getting representation in the local council.
All over Africa, history and folklore speak eloquently of women who were wealthy merchants, military commanders, state envoys, accomplished politicians and statesmen. The women of Africa’s history appeared more broad minded in outlook and were not given to envy. Polygamy being a way of life, they allowed their men to have many wives with minimal friction. Divorce rate was very low, so was domestic violence.
Speaking of polygamy, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta recently signed into law, a bill legalizing polygamy. Why did Kenyans do that??? Perhaps it’s an affirmation of their belief in their culture, though I know many young women will call for your head if you dare advocate same here in Nigeria beyond what obtains (laughs). In that same law however, there are other very progressive provisions that help guarantee a woman’s rights. For example, the law bans under-18 marriages, guarantees a woman 50% of properties acquired during the union etc. But that’s by the way.
In Nigeria, it is disheartening that twenty -five years after the Beijing Affirmative Action, women hold less than 5% of political positions and it is obvious that the country’s commitment to that universal declaration is more in the breach. For a country of about 200m people with a 49% women population, women constituted just 5.65% of elected officials after the 2015 elections. This even slumped further after the 2019 elections where women had just 4.1% of those elected.
In contrast, Rwanda does not just have a 62% female majority in her parliament, her post-genocide Constitution gave them an opportunity to write in gender-friendly provisions that mandate women hold at least 30% elective seats. Other countries like Cameroon also amended their electoral laws to include gender quotas. In Europe, most Nordic countries have a culture of higher women’s participation in public office.
But why is Nigeria and indeed the African continent lagging behind in gender equality and access to public office? Why are Nigerian women not measuring up to their female counterparts elsewhere? The reasons are not far fetched - depraved national values, breakdown of institutions that could build men into value-driven leaders, enthronement of mediocrity as we debase merit, godfatherism and cronyism, primordial loyalty, quest for wealth; pursuit of what does not matter in place of what matters. I can go no and on.
But women must never lend themselves to the defeatist idea of staying at home and doing nothing. Women must never acquiesce to the narrative that subjects us to being mere appendages. A society’s development is assured on the contribution of women to those indices that matter.
However more laws and more awareness campaigns are needed to bring about women empowerment. Indeed some statistics show more girls in school in many states in Nigeria and this is encouraging. More education puts the responsibility more on the women than on the State to fight for their right. No one relinguishes power to another. We have to stand up to the battle. Many women are in some positions of influence and it is time to think 'gender.' The Queen bee era is gone. We have also perforated the glass ceiling in many places just a little push and we will have the women there.
Today Finland has a woman head of State and women as majority in their Parliament. Guess what? Finland has a 99% literacy rate with reputedly the best education system in the world. There must be a link between education and women’s rights therefore the empowerment of the African girl child through sound education must be of the highest priority to all women.
No comments:
Post a Comment