Memorable Quote

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“Should we continue to uphold the culture that says women have no share in their parent’s and husband’s inheritance? And as we have been told 70 per cent of our food is provided and produced by women who are landless by our culture and have no access to anything that will help them in production and productivity in their farms.

“Culture to me is dynamic and progressive and not everything in every culture is what should be upheld. If culture is dynamic and progressive, we should throw searchlight on our culture, the one that are not going to help us let us throw them away and look at what to help us particularly in the area of development.

“If 75 per cent of our population is made up of women and youth, then there is something in the subject that we have taken for discussion today. I mean that not to give them adequate consideration, not to invest adequately in them, not to identify their role, we can only be undermining our own development.'


I agree with him. He is a controversial figure but his achievements cannot be denied. I appreciate it when Political Leaders, Captains of Industries go out of their way to elevate disadvantaged groups and for the case of Nigeria, I am talking about women. Chimamanda has spoken about it before.
In my opinion it is never too much or too late to hold discussions on the need for predominantly male decision makers to assist women escape from the elements of being a second rate human being. And yes this is true, alive and well in Nigeria, ranging from the lackluster 'appreciation' of a newborn female child, to the fact that most of the stark illiterate children are girls, as well as the vilification of single women/ single mothers, and the very high, almost god-like burden of expectations heaped on the married woman, married mother and even widows! Obj's question remains relevant, if 70% of our food is provided and produced by women, why are these same women plagued by low expectations and limited opportunities in our deeply patriarchal system...It is about time serious efforts are made to actively support women, who, I emphasize, have suffered injustices and who will stumble if nobody bothers to empower them as they struggle to keep going in this journey of life

Call him whatever you will but President Goodluck Jonathan has elevated a few female administrators to positions of power and well done to him.

Happy Birthday OBJ You are just a week older than me ;).

Thanks for reading folks