As a student at the university a couple of years back, I never ceased to inaudibly ruminate over the choice of ladies to always vie for the vice presidency of respective students’ bodies. It was mostly unfashionable to have a guy attempt this. Only in few instances do some ladies refuse the stereotype and instead gun for the top office. In an acutely patriarchal society like Africa, a lady seeking the presidency at whatever level is tantamount to asking the winner of the 100m Paralympics Jonnie Peacock to race with Usian Bolt. The odds are there even though Peacock is now 1.89 seconds behind the Jamaican sprinter. However, I see wisdom in what that represents. The vice presidency is a close shot to the presidency and an indication that the occupier also has a capacity to perform like or even better than the president. Enter Joyce Banda, ex- parliamentarian, former foreign minister, former vice president and now president of Malawi; one of the 2 women on whose shoulder the fate of millions of women on the African continent dominantly rests.
For a woman who kicked against the late president, Bingu wa Mutharika’s attempt to adopt his brother in 2010 as his successor and became a political orphan doing so, there’s a level of guaranty that she is not one to be cowed easily. Her credentials as a development worker in a personal capacity also hint at the days to come for the about 16 million people of Malawi. Already pushing the Domestic Violence Bill once again amidst previous achievements of having designed the National Platform for Action on Orphans and Vulnerable Children and the Zero Tolerance Campaign against Child Abuse, she has also found a place in the heart of the LGBT community with her announcement to overturn Malawi’s ban on homosexuality. The latter is an effort that would make Malawi the second African nation to decriminalize same-sex sexual preference.
Like her West African and Liberian counterpart, the 73 year old Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, she’s also keen on bringing motherly sensitivity and emotion to the presidency. Her sales of the presidential jet and 60 luxury Mercedes Benz used by her predecessor last month is an indication of that sensitivity in a country where poverty plagues about 75% of the citizenry. Ellen on her part clearly understood the force that education is and made primary education mandatory ditto enrolment in public schools; one that is now the USP of her administration asides infrastructural development and the negotiation cum settlement of billions in foreign debt. Her belief in Desmond Tutu’s archetypal thought that – ‘If we are going to see real development in the world then our best investment is women’, saw her stressing girls’ education and keeping the gender agenda on top of her government’s priorities due to the protracted disregard. In a continent where literacy level is still put at a little above average by the UN, Sirleaf’s initiative would in the medium term increase the percentage.
When war or serious crisis plagues a nation, it takes about 9 or 10 year for the society to revert back to a shade of its past. My Liberian neighbour, Shelton thinks it’s time to go back home having followed happenings closely and noticed that Madame Sirleaf, like the Liberian people call her deserves some additional mention for the quick pace of development in the West African country. Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff, another Amazon in the South American nation of Brazil spells accomplishment and inspiration for her African counterpart as her country continues in its quest to sustain its BRIC achievement. Germany’s Merkel’s leadership in the European Union community also causes heads to turn. Would there be critics, of course. Even Margaret Thatcher the global ‘poster girl’ for female leadership understood this when she told the world that if even she walks on the River Thames, tongues would still wag, claiming it’s because of her inability to swim!
The Women’s right advocate in Joyce Banda rightly sacked the Chief of police whose colleagues killed 19 protestors during anti-government demonstrations. Obvious was the killing of one Robert Chasowa, a pro-democracy student activist who consistently made public, eye-popping sleaze in the Mutharika administration. Also excused from office by JB, like the press calls her, was the uninformed minister of information, Patricia Kaliati who had upon the president’s demise claimed the vice president had no right to the presidency since she was no longer a member of the ruling party. The head of the state broadcast corporation was also rightly and predictably dismissed.
On a different front, it should also be noted that Sirleaf is divorced and Banda also left her first marriage where she survived abuse and is now married to the former Chief Justice of the country; Africa’s first gentleman! These marital statuses have not detracted from their capacity and success. A woman’s happiness and capacity is not necessarily tied to being married like conservative African would have us believe. I do not see a Sirleaf or Banda displaying dictatorial stunts in the years to come. Mother Africa would witness growth in the enclave of these mothers. Already the foreign aids which Malawi badly needs for take off again are coming in. Western donors had on account of failing to meet good governance framing withdrawn support from the Southern African country under her predecessor’s watch.
The score sheet of both women would determine the political future of several women in Africa. In 2011, Nigeria’s Sarah Jubril had a single vote in a primaries election that saw several thousand voting to decide the presidential candidate of the ruling party. It was a blow well dealt on female leadership aspiration in Africa.
Prior to her foray into frontline politics, JB together with President Joachim Chissano, Former Mozambique president and winner of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation Prize for Leadership won the US-based Hunger Project’s Africa Prize for Leadership in 1997. It is a decade for women and the duo of Banda and Sirleaf must deck this opportunity with flowery and historic achievement. It’s the only way to push the frontiers of women participation in politics and rightly bear the ‘Iron Lady’ designate without losing the ‘motherly sensitivity’. And for the first time in the history of the Nobel Prize, the win by 3 women connotes a lot. Ellen Sirleaf- Johnson; Leymah Gbowee, author of Pray the Devil Back to Hell, a book on her experience during the Liberian civil war and Tawakkol Karman, a pro-democracy campaigner from Yemen have made the Beijing declaration cause worthy.
I argue that it took the civil rights movement 13 years before streaks of victory were seen; and another 40 years for an Obama presidency to be accepted and tolerated. It has only taken women less than 17 years post the Beijing declaration and the landscape is littered with several triumph stories already; that of Ellen and Banda standing tall. The years ahead must be squeezed ‘sensitively’ by women to give more.
______
‘Sola Fagorusi is a youth development advocate, freelance writer, accomplished debater cum coach and blogger. The Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife graduate volunteered with various non-profits at different times as an adolescent. His interest in social entrepreneurship straddles leadership, good governance cum anti-corruption and adolescent reproductive health and rights. The Leap Africa alumnus is also a trained peer educator and a DESPLAY alumnus/co-facilitator. He was technical consultant and lead judge at the Plateau Inter-Faith Peace Youth TV Debate Project and has anchored various television and radio programmes in Kaduna, Lagos and Port-Harcourt. He profoundly perceives writing and oratory as key tools for development. ‘Sola blogs at www.kadunaboy.com and is about completing studies for a Masters degree in development communication.
