This year’s Women’s Day celebration anchored on the theme of equality of the sexes is very apt to discuss issues affecting women generally and particularly Nigerian women. There is no doubt that women are oppressed all over the world but the oppression of women in countries that underwent colonization whether in Africa or Asia is monumental. Agreed that the extent of oppression differs from country to country as well as from region to region, the patriarchal societies in Africa have used culture and even religion to subjugate women to second class position.
In Nigeria, the giant of Africa, the female power has been neglected for many years to the detriment of national development. Our politics is so macho that women do not dare to be close except being in women’s wing of a party. There are so many cultural inhibitions that keep women outside spheres of influence and restrict them to the private and domestic arenas. Unfortunately, women are in the forefront of those that ensure the observance of such inimical cultural practice such as widowhood rites, female genital mutilation, denying women inheritance and others.
In Re-Creating Ourselves, African Women and Critical Transformations, Nigerian feminist scholar and theorist, Molara Ogundipe-Leslie, stated that the Chinese leader, Mao Tse Tung, listed three mountains on the back of a Chinese man. The first, according to him, was oppression from outside, arising from colonization, the second was the feudal oppression of two thousand years of authoritarianism and the third was his backwardness: but a woman had four mountains—the fourth being man. However, Ogundipe-Leslie insisted that the African woman has six mountains on her back; the first one is oppression from outside due to colonialism and neocolonialism, the second is from traditional structures, feudal, slave-based, communal while the third is her backwardness. The fourth one is man, the fifth is her colour, her race while the sixth is herself.
Another renowned Nigerian feminist, Mary Kolawole in Womanism and African Consciousness, drew attention to the multiple levels of otherness that confront African women writers (African women) as racial, cultural, regional, religious, third world and post-colonial. There are similarities between what Ogundipe-Leslie and Mary Kolawole regard as mountains on the back of African or Nigerian women and multiple levels of otherness that confront African women. As the world celebrates women this year, it is important to examine how far Nigeria has gone in ensuring gender parity or gender equality in terms of empowerment and education of women.
In terms of politics, Nigerian women are still strangers limited to marginal roles as members of the women’s wing. The roles of women in Nigeria today have not significantly changed from those portrayed in Chinua Achebe’s earlier works. In most of these works, the women’s roles are mainly in private and domestic fronts. Achebe’s women can be rightly said to belong to the kitchen and the other room (apologies to President Muhammdu Buhari). Most of Achebe’s female characters in Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God and No Longer at Ease are condescendingly inferior to men. However, it should be pointed out that Achebe sort of redeemed himself later by creating a strong female character in Nwayibuife (a woman is also something) in his novel, Anthills of the Savannah.
I agree with Kolawole that “difference or otherness has been manipulated by feminists and patriarchal structures to situate African women in marginal or limited social positions.” Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi might be right when she asserts in Africa Wo/Man Palava, the Nigerian Novel by Woman that “Nigeria has not progressed because of lack of genuine female authority in the contemporary public arena, such as we have seen utilized in Israel, Sri Lanka, India, Great Britain, the Philippines, Pakistan, Canada and other countries.” Ogunyemi further opines that “Nigeria also needs strong women leaders in the top echelons of power to infuse the sense of purpose at the national level as it is in the traditional, particularly through a genuine, democratic revolution.”
While much has been done to ensure gender equality in some advanced countries, the same cannot be said of many African countries, including its giant, Nigeria. If the place of our first lady can be in the kitchen and the other room, the lot of other Nigerian women can be imagined. Let us begin today to incorporate women, our better half, in our national agenda for development. Putting them in the kitchen and the other room is why Nigeria is still backward. Rwanda and some other countries in Africa are doing much in gender equality in political appointments.
We should emulate them and work towards achieving 50 percent female representation in political appointments at all tiers of government. It is sad that almost 60 years of independence, no Nigerian woman has become an elected governor of state. During the recent Kogi State gubernatorial poll, the only female contestant was physically attacked by political thugs of her opponent while the police look the other way. A woman leader of a political party was killed and her body burnt by political thugs in Kogi State.
Nigerian women are hardworking, bold and assertive in any field they found themselves. What they actually need is a strong pedestal to stand. Their compassion and ability to manage resources can be brought to bear in our violent politics. Before they can effectively play these roles, they need to be empowered through sound education and empowerment. Women should be given 50 percent representation in federal and state houses of assembly. They should be given 50 percent representation in all federal, state and local government appointments.
All the same, some women work with men to subjugate other women. Women should stop being their own enemies. Women at times do not support their own for any political contest or even appointment. Some of them prefer men to women. There is need for female bonding and sisterhood. The narrative of subjugation of women in Nigeria must change. But before then, it is good to remember what Chinua Achebe enthused in Home and Exile, “Until the lions produce their own historians, the story of the hunt will glorify only the hunter.”
This might have informed Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “The danger of a single story.” Nigerian women have produced so many historians and storytellers. What they need now are activists that will propel them to the arena of power. They can become governors and even the president. Nothing is impossible. But they need the support of men to achieve these lofty goals. It is my dream that one day a woman will become a governor of one of the states in the country. It is also my dream that one day a woman will become the president of this great country. Men have dominated the political scene for decades without many achievements.
Let us give women the chance to take over the political and economic spheres and see the difference. We need our own Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Angela Merkel, Jacinda Ardern, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Although America, the bastion of democracy, is yet to have a female president, they were very close to it during the last presidential election. Let our leaders have it in mind that our next national goal is to ensure gender equality in all spheres of our national life.