Folorunsho Alakija, 64, mother of four, is rated by Forbes as the richest black woman in the world, with a net worth of $2.5 billion as of November 2014. Other sources put her estimated fortune at $7.3 billion.
Alakija’s success story in the corporate world came with a price, though.
Ekpo kindles fire for Ransome-Kuti
Women were once relegated to the background in Nigeria, no matter their educational status and capabilities.
In the colonial days, even when it was fashionable for white administrators to send Africans overseas after their Cambridge examinations, only a handful of women benefitted.
Women were not allowed to vote, even though the colonialists introduced taxation that did not exclude them. It led to the Aba women’s riots in the South East in 1929, spearheaded by Margaret Ekpo.
Olufunmilayo Ransome-Kuti also spearheaded universal adult suffrage agitation in the South West in 1947, which eventually gave women the vote.
Historical activism ought to have accelerated women’s equal participation in Nigeria’s social engineering. But instability in the political and social process coupled with long military juntas retarded their active participation.
However, since the return to democracy in 1999, there has been a visible presence and involvement of women in the social fabric, prodded partly by the global consensus that women be actively involved in national development.
Casting the Nigerian woman as a home decorator rather than as partner in progress has been erased from national mindset. Nigerian women are also playing on the global stage.
This transition from retrogressive perception to progressivism is vindicated by their input in social reform and economic rejuvenation.
Impact of wives of military dictators
The long period of military government in Nigeria was dominated by Muslim men who, by tradition, hardly reckon with women in leadership positions.
Curiously, however, former military President, Ibrahim Babangida, supported his wife, Maryam, who initiated Better Life Programme For Rural Women in September 1986, a year after he seized the reins of power through a coup d’etat.
Better Life awoke consciousness for caring for women. Even as unpopular as her husband was, the project rallied the support of rural dwellers for the dictator.
Maryam helped her husband to curry sympathy from rural women who, for the first time, felt something like direct government touch, a propaganda that helped the man to stay in office for nine years.
To underscore the value of Maryam’s project to him, Babangida relaunched it in 2003 when he tried to return as civilian president after the first tenure of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, giving it an African focus: “Better Life For African Women”.
Maryam’s effort encouraged the wife of Babangida’s successor, Mariam Abacha, to initiate pet projects which touched the lives of many rural women.
At least, the efforts marked the beginning of deepening governance.
Most of the projects executed by the first ladies were worthy. They helped the government to direct attention to areas it did not have time for.
Military regimes chased civilian activists or concentrated on big policy issues. Matters thought minor, like those affecting women and children, were brought to public attention by the wives of the dictators.
The tenure of Maryam Babangida as First Lady was first of its kind. Her interventionist Better Life reached rural women, widows, and children.
Her successor, Mariam Abacha, moderated her husband’s brutal reign with life touching schemes such as the Family Support Programmme (FSP), Family Support Basic Education program (FSBEDP), and Family Economic Advancement Program (FEAP).
The office of first lady became prominent again when Obasanjo’s wife, Stella, assumed the status. Her social work included the Poverty Alleviation Programme (PAP) which empowered rural women through skills such as tailoring and farm produce processing.
Stella’s successor, Turai, wife of the late President Umar Yar’Adua, created the Women and Youth Empowerment Foundation. She also established the African First Ladies’ Forum to get public recognition for women.
Affirmative Action
Nigeria is currently doing its best to meet up with the mandate of the United Nations (UN) on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), part of which is the inclusion of women at all levels of social, political, and economic development.
The Ministry of Women’s Affairs and Social Development strives to attain the principles of the Women Affirmative Action adopted in 1995 when women from all over the world met in Beijing, China to articulate global consensus on the rights of the woman, regardless of class, religion, culture, or nationality.
Affirmative Action aims to end all manner of female discrimination and to enhance female participation in all spheres on the same level with men.
All Africa Online reports that “the Beijing Conference on Women 1995, simply called the Beijing Declaration, outlined a global commitment to achieving equality, development and peace for women worldwide.
“As defined in the Mission Statement of the 123-page document, the platform for action is a platform for women empowerment.
“It aims at removing all the obstacles to women’s active participation in all spheres of public and private life through a full and equal share in economic, social and political decision-making at home, in the workplace and in the wider national and international communities, noting that equality is a matter of human rights and a condition of social justice.”
The platform for action emphasises the need for women to work together and in partnership with men towards the common goal of worldwide gender equality.
The Beijing Declaration was a continuing project of the first ever global summit on female gender issues in Nairobi, Kenya in 1985, spearheaded by the United States.
To effectively articulate progress being made in the MDGs, governments were urged to set up the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and Social Development with annual budgets.
Legacy of pace setters
Obasanjo added impetus to raising the profile of women in public positions, but the budget allocations were not enough to meet the status and the wide range of collaborations required by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and Social Development to meet the UN target.
But the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan has tried to implement in full the mandate requiring no fewer than 40 per women presence in government offices.
Below are some of the high net worth women whose positions help in accelerating Nigeria’s implementation of Affirmative Action and in attaining the MDGs, which second phase began in January 2015.
Zainab Maina
Women Affairs and Social Development Minister, Zainab Maina, advocates the inclusion of women in political and economic spheres. Her campaign has led to a little increase in the budgetary allocation to the ministry.
The ministry conducts workshops and collaborates with gender-based non governmental organisations (NGOs).
It coordinated discourses and recommendations that led to landmark legislations that protect women and children. They include Child’s Right Act, Non Discrimination in Public Appointment Against Disabled Persons Act, and Same-sex Prohibition Act.
Oby Ezekwesili
Obiageli Ezekwesili, a chartered accountant, co-founded Transparency International (TI) and is one of the pioneer Directors of the global anti-corruption body based in Berlin, Germany.
She has served as World Bank Vice President for Africa.
Oby, as she is fondly called, began her career as an auditor and management consultant with Deloitte and Touche before co-founding TI and serving as its Director for Africa from 1994 to 1999.
She also served as Special Assistant to Obasanjo on Budget Monitoring, and in the Price Intelligence Unit from 2003 to 2005, where she earned the nickname, Madam Due Process, because she instituted reforms and due process that refined government public procurement.
When she became Solid Minerals Minister in 2009, she worked to reform the mining sector to bring it up to international standard and attract investment.
She has also served as the Chairperson of the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI).
Ndidi Okereke-Onyiuke
Ndidi Okereke-Onyiuke was Director General of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) during an era of reform in the economy which required technocrats.
Her tenure from 2000 to 2007 saw the growth of the market index, as many companies got quoted on the NSE.
Under her watch, investors’ confidence soared and many state government obtained development bonds from the NSE.
Her successor, Oscar Onyema, is only consolidating on the solid foundation she laid.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
The appointment of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as Finance Minister and Economy Coordinating Minister heralds Nigeria’s induction into world leadership in the engineering of sovereign fiscal architecture.
Her knowledge of the domestic conditions of developing world’s economies is the catalyst of her accomplishments.
Nigeria’s growing economy and those of many other African countries owe their attainments and prospects to her intervention in their fiscal regimes, both when she was World Bank President and now that she is reviving the Nigerian economy.
Okonjo-Iweala opened Nigeria’s economy to global investment when she coordinated the agitation for the London and Paris Club of creditors to forgive Nigeria’s debut of about $36 billion owed since the 1970s.
That debt stock had provided various past administrations the platform to siphon resources in the name of debt swap that did not loosen the debt trap.