I begin today’s article with an International Women’s Day tribute to Nigeria’s women especially to my mum whom I love dearly and also in honour of the evergreen memory of Alvana Ojukwu who could have helped refine the arguments in this piece.
Recently I read a newsletter which listed some of the milestones of the women rights struggle in Sweden. Generally, Swedes worry that their society is unequal (though they have mixed or ‘gender-neutral’ toilets) and they have a jämställdhetsminister – ‘a minister for equality’ to implement their policies on equality in society. The said list of the milestones of Sweden began with 1845 when male and female heirs became entitled to inherit equally from the estate of the deceased, and closed with 2002 when parents became entitled to 480 days paid paternity leave of which each parent must take at least 60 days. There were others like mannen får inte slå sin fru – “the man cannot beat his wife” in 1864 which came a whole 57 years before women got the right to vote in 1921. Thinking about the society in Sweden made me reflect about the long road to equality that lies ahead and which we must walk in Nigeria.
Consider for example the right of women to be elected to political office. Before the 2011 General Elections, there was 1 woman and 2 men seeking to be elected presidential candidate for the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP). The current President, Goodluck Jonathan scored 2,736 votes while a former Vice President Atiku Abubakar scored 805 votes and the only female candidate, Sarah Jubril scored 1 vote. Sarah Jubril had contested most Presidential elections since the 1990s, she later confirmed that she voted for herself in that 1-vote outing. I am not a member of the PDP [of course], but I was very upset when I learnt about this result, I still am. How could she score only 1 vote in an election where so many women, including at least the national and 37 state ‘Women Leaders’ of the party were in attendance as voting delegates? I sought explanation from within the women rights movement and guess the answer I got? “How could Sarah expect to be elected when she did not bother to travel around Nigeria to campaign just like Goodluck Jonathan?”
But when I questioned why/how Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf got to be elected President in Liberia (twice) and also won a Nobel Prize for Peace though she is indicted by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which recommended for her to be banned from holding public office for 30 years for her role in the civil war in her country, I got accused of misogyny and for “hating on the women”. Phew, rocket science!
Well, back to Nigeria, it seems more women than men turn up to cast their votes; at least it was so in my Abuja polling station in 2011. Perhaps there are really more women than men in the society; but whatever the rationale, more women are voting but more men are elected. When I probed this, I am told it is ‘patriarchy’; that the ‘man’ at home had decreed who is to be voted for therefore the women are only doing the will of the men. If this crude theory were true, it would imply that the women voters are not real ‘subject’ with moral and political agency but mere ‘tools’ controlled by men. The question for this line of thinking then is: how could women be entrusted with anything at all in society if they cannot be trusted to cast their own votes?
A while ago, a friend raised alarm about the practice of maternity leave in Nigeria (we don’t have paternity leave). According to my wise friend, he has observed that women who take 3-months leave as allowed by law (is there really a law about this?) often have to forfeit their pay and also risk being laid off and replaced by their employers. So some women bounce back to their desk a mere fortnight after childbirth in order to avoid a tough post-childbirth unemployment struggle.
Of course a typical ‘gender workshop’ would give you a long list of horrendously unacceptable injustices meted out to women by ‘patriarchy’ in Nigeria; but I am particularly alarmed by a career called ‘marketing’. In my view, marketing in Nigeria is a career that is ruled by women and perhaps majority of marketers hustling on Nigeria’s streets are also women. In 2011 a lady got a job in a decrepit ‘microfinance’ bank. Part of her job description was to open accounts worth 5 million Naira every month and to “ensure” that the accounts remained funded for 3 months. Yet banks continue to rise and fall on the strength of their marketers being able to meet steep and progressively rising ‘targets’.
That young women seal such impossible marketing deals sexually is no longer news, one can say it is almost official. Yet job descriptions in Nigeria are often ‘gendered’ such as “5 FEMALE Accountants wanted for urgent employment!” etc. Of course I am aware that on some jobs or locations, specific positions would require members of a specific sex, but in most cases, one fails to see why a female is better suited for a particular position than the male or vice versa. Why do I question this practice if it ends up providing opportunities to ‘empower’ women? I worry that this is not empowerment at all, it is commodification and abuse. For an individual’s person, experience and skills to be reduced to his/her sex is to me an extreme degradation second only perhaps to being reduced to one of the colours of the rainbow. We should ask these employers, is it a woman you want or an accountant? Often they show us the job description (and pay) for the accountant, but not for the woman. If they want a person who is both a woman and an accountant, by all means list the job specification (and pay package) on both portfolios so that a male candidate sees clearly that he is not qualified.
A moral dilemma was pointed out to me by a lady thus; if in an job interview for example, a qualified man scores more points than a woman but he is set aside and the available opportunity passed on to the qualified-but-not-the-best female candidate; it would be unjust, morally unacceptable and indeed discriminatory to the individual man who, for no fault of his, has had to bear the weight of the lopsided system. Slowly, I began to notice that hardworking women vehemently reject any insinuations that they got anything in life on account of being women. They go at length to show their sterling merit and perhaps the list of men they have excelled over on their career path and emphasise that they have survived or succeeded in spite of, not because of being women. A young lady in this category would then look forward to job interviews where she can ‘beat’ the men and emerge the undisputed candidate. By merit, not by sex.
If this theory is right that women prefer to succeed by merit and not by being women, then I think that the focus of the whole ‘women struggle’ in Nigeria could be reduced to this: helping women to be the best that they can be. If you think about it this way then there is a lot we could all do and I don’t mean on twitter or in conference rooms of our offices or of posh hotels. For example, the young girl in school might need extra-lessons so that she can pass her exams and earn a place in the university. The young graduate may need some job coaching with her CV and cover letter to get a job. The lady in an abusive relationship need to be told emphatically that she is with the wrong type of man and should leave without delay – and it really would be easier if this was said by her Pastor/Imam/Baba and not by me. And oh yes, players (male and female) should play football (or any sport) for Nigeria only on account of their skills and certainly not based on how they conduct their sexual relations; frankly, I don’t want to know what 2 adults do behind closed doors.
On the other hand, employers need to be told and be made to look for the best candidates and not merely for men or for women. I do believe that there are millions of well-trained women out there in most professions who should be found and made to compete favourably with the men. Affirmative action should therefore be about finding the best women for the right opportunities on the one hand, but also about challenging and seeking reprieve on behalf of the best women who got passed over by the evil patriarchal system. If we find that some degree of positive discrimination is required for women in some cases such as the enrolment of women into the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), then by all means we should deploy it. But greater emphasis should lie on dismantling the structures that make women unable to compete favourably such that the positive discrimination is used only as an interim measure.
Returning to the story of Sweden, I find that long before women began to vote in 1921, violence against women was outlawed already in 1864. This was obviously not a ‘women struggle’ or a ‘feminist thing’; it was rather the case of men deciding to do different. One can say that the men gave up their “right” to beat women – if it was ever a right. I think we all can learn from this: first, improving the welfare of women is not a ‘women issue’; it really is a collective struggle. Secondly, we all should resolve NOT to be violent against women as I have since resolved. Building a prosperous Nigeria could neither be done by the women nor by the men. It has to be together as equal partners.
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Daniel Nengak
Nengak Daniel Gondyi is presently a post-graduate student in International Migration and Ethnic Relations at Malmö Högskola inSweden. He is also a Senior Programme Officer of the Abuja based Centre for Democracy and Development, CDD. He holds a Bachelors’ in International Studies from the Ahmadu Bello University. Read his full profile here.
