As we continue to reel from the effects of Deborah Samuel's murder we need to look at the gender aspects of the problem too

Ayo Akinfe

[1] No none has said it but it is certain that one of the reason why Deborah's murderers were so enraged was because she was female. They were probably thinking: "How dare a common woman have the audacity to talk when we are discussing religion."

[2] As we all know, women are the anchors and hubs of society. Without them, the family unit simply grinds to a halt. This is more pronounced in rural areas where not having a mother condemns children to lives of unbelievable hardship. Rural children who lose their mothers at a young age basically spend the rest of their lives in hell

[3] For me, it is no coincidence that Rwanda, where 61% of its parliamentarians are women, is enjoying massive economic growth, is spearheading the African industrial revival and has some of the most socially progressive laws on the planet. In 2018, Rwanda enjoyed 7.2% GDP growth

[4] In Nigeria, not one of our 36 governors is a woman and I find that totally unacceptable. Do you also know that women only make up 6% of Nigeria’s National Assembly?

[5] Look at that figures for the ratio of female parliamentarians worldwide and see how badly Nigeria is doing - Rwanda 61%, Cuba 53%, Mexico 48%, Sweden 46%, Namibia 46%, Mozambique 40%, South Africa 42%, Senegal 42%, Philippines 30%, Indonesia 20%, Saudi Arabia 20%, Malaysia 14%, Ghana 13%, Nigeria 6% and Kuwait 3%

[6] It surely must embarrass you all to realise that Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam has a higher percentage of female parliamentarians than Nigeria. Tomorrow we will call them extremists but alas, we are failing to address our own prejudices. We are in this predicament simply because too many of our women are only interested in personal material wealth

[7] Nigeria has actually made a lot of progress in terms of female literacy. At the moment, adult female literacy is about 62%. For me, we ended the primordial negativity when the Gowon administration decided to found Federal Government Girls Colleges in the 1970s. Since then, female education has been on the up and up but hey, it is nowhere near uhuru

[8] Gender equality does not just mean the freedom to buy handbags, expensive geles, hold elaborate hen nights in Dubai and purchase expensive Gucci and Lui Vitton handbags. It also means closing the gap in areas such as politics, commerce, sports, innovation, etc

[9] When I look at the extravagant bashes some of our female old school associations hold, I just shake my head in despair. Fighting for more female representation, taking up causes like that of Deborah Samuels, opposing misogyny etc, has got to be the priority of women's organisations

[10] Pat Utomi once said that women are not under the same social pressures as men, so are not as inclined to steal public funds to marry numerous wives, acquire chieftaincy titles, build numerous houses, etc. Basically, what this means is that all those women’s groups failing to sponsor their members for election in Nigeria should not complain about corruption because their actions are partly responsible for the problem. It is over to you ladies. Come 2023, let us aim to have at least one third of all governors and parliamentarians as women