Political Participation & Leadership
A former Minister of Women Affairs and Youth Development, Hajia Aisha Ismail, speaks with LEADERSHIP’s SA’ADATU SHUAIBU, on the challenges facing women in Nigerian politics.
There has been agitation for increased women participation in government and politics, how would you assess the situation of Nigerian woman in this direction
I am very disappointed, because there were areas that were even better before we became a democracy such as local government administration. Now people claim that the percentage of women in politics has improved and yes, it has improved slightly at federal level. But there is a distinction between what happens at the federal level, at the state level, and at the local government level. We (women) have actually become invisible at the local government level. It is very disappointing because Nigeria is one country that works so hard with other countries at the UN level and other global forums to ensure that women are part of decision making process, but we have not been able to do that. There is some improvement at the Federal Executive Council but aside from that there’s not much to be seen. After all the enlightenment and the various women’s movements, where we are today is very disappointing.
What were the challenges that you faced being a woman in a male dominated government?
Firstly, when you are a minority, the challenges mostly involve being accepted as a serious person. Whether it is a situation where there is discrimination based on sex or based on colour or age, there’s always that challenge of being different because you are not expected to be there. I was fortunate because I was in charge of how to strengthen the movement for women’s inclusion but most of the time you find that when decisions are being taken and you are a minority unless you have a very strong leader, it is always very difficult. I was fortunate that the president then (Obasanjo) that I worked with was sympathetic towards women’s issues so I did not have many problems. But you can imagine what it was like for a woman to be in education or defense or police affairs. It is so challenging because you hardly can make an impact because the general opinion is you are not supposed to be there.
Secondly, when you come out even from the decision making arena, you come out to the people you are supposed to serve. They don’t even seem to want you to be there. They would prefer their own kind. So if you appoint a woman in a position they tend to not take that position seriously, it is like a largess given to you just to keep the women quiet so that you do not agitate for more. At the end of the day, even the society that you serve does not seem to think that you should be there. So it is always daunting.
Thirdly, as a woman you have to work double time. If you work six hours, you have to work twelve hours because you have to prove that you are worthy of the appointment given to you. Also, you discover no one is willing to help you with the burden. You are expected to continue with your normal routine of being a mother, a housewife, even mai guard (gatekeeper). Your husband would never compromise to try to give you the support you need and so the rest of the society will demand that you fulfill all of those duties. The office, if you make one mistake, all the cameras are on you. Remember the female speaker, you make one mistake and you are crucified while your male counterpart can make one million mistakes and he will be okay because you are a minority. These women are superwomen, I call all women that are in decision making positions superwomen because they are always working hard. However, because the society is unwilling, you find that there is a set culture of what governance is supposed to be in Nigeria.
Women leadership qualities are hardly appreciated in Nigeria, what difficulties did you face as Minister of Women Affairs?
The problem with the Ministry of Women Affairs is that, you have to create a balance between working for the government and with NGOs. The Ministry functions almost like an NGO yet it is within the government and some of the things that the Minister is tasked to do is negotiated with the government. For instance, if you want affirmative action, you must sit and negotiate with the government yet you are also a part of the government. If you want the government to invest more in health care because of the problem you have with maternal health, you must negotiate with them and to do that you need non-governmental action. NGOs work hard to enlightening the society and the government. They negotiate with them and get it done. You have to work closely with the government and NGOs. So it is a little difficult balancing the two.
Secondly, you must protect the interests of the government because you are part of the government but at the same time your work is actually to protect the interests of a certain group. Unfortunately, women issues have always been viewed as social issues, those issues that are not taken seriously. It is not taken as a developmental issue. If Nigeria can accept women into the mainstream of economic process, the political process and the decision making process as a strategy for development then it would be easy for the Minister of Women Affairs. But the Nigerian system including the society take it as a we versus you situation so everybody is trying to create an advantage and they feel that the women issue only creates an advantage for women which is not so. This will be another problem for her.
Thirdly, one would have to be very strong because of interest groups. There are interest groups particularly in this political period where they feel that they can hijack such women issues for their own personal interest for instance the NGOs that are supposed to negotiate, enlighten and make the government conform to all of those agreements signs, can be used for votes and at the end of the day you find many of these NGOs compromising on the issue, and so many just becoming extensions of political parties or political personages and so on. Also, the women movement has become very weakened which it shouldn’t be. It is a real contradiction. Democracy is supposed to release all of that energy and improve on the quality of life so that anything that brings about the improvement of the quality of life should be made a part of the agenda for democratic movement but unfortunately for Nigeria, it is not so. So the women issues have become weaker and that is a problem for her.
There are people who frown at women participation in politics, what would you about this?
I don’t think they are serious. After the mess we are in, who would frown at women participating in politics? Maybe if we had an equal number of women to men, maybe we would not be in the mess we are in today. Like I said, if women made up 45-50 percent of the members of the National Assembly today, even for the sake of our children roaming the street today, the drug addiction, the frustration of the youth, the high child mortality rates, I think women would be more focused and demand better governance. You can imagine if women made up 50 percent of the Federal Executive Council, they would not be making such unwanted policies that they are making. Scandinavian countries were the first countries to develop a situation where women were equal in economic and political decision making and they became one of the best societies on earth because women think of children, food, hunger and generally the quality of humanity. We do not think about the accumulation of cars, houses, travelling or wives. We women think about the mundane things of survival in quality of the human being. So if there were more women, I think Nigeria would be a better country. Can you imagine if we had a woman president today? She would not think about breaking the country apart. She would be thinking about how to unite this country.
Because 90 percent of the political actors are men so they bring 90 percent of the mess that we are in today. So I think it is good to bring a different view in the art of politics. I think that all people must agree that it is smart and necessary to have women in politics. For a country like Nigeria, it is absolutely necessary for the women to stand up and participate in politics.
Nigerians are looking towards having an elected female governor, what do you think are the chances of that happening?
Until women themselves vote for a woman governor, it is not possible. The way we are today, haven’t you even noticed they cannot even vote women as deputy governors. Not to talk of women being governors. But if you look at the trend, whenever it is an election year, every politician will start singing the song of women in politics. Why? Because he needs the women’s vote. It has been established since the beginning of democratic process in Nigeria, women are the voters in this country. In every voting exercise, you find that majority percentages of the voters are women. So you can say that it is women who elect governors, national assembly members and the president and vice president. So if they can use their voting power, they can elect a woman governor. It is up to women to target certain states and decide that they are going to use all of their energy to select woman governors and they would do so. Of course, they would have to think of all of the paraphernalia of intimidation and rigging. But I believe that if women themselves decide to vote a woman governor they can do so. We should all work hard to produce one so that we can make an example. A governor that comes and does not steal a kobo, one that sees a state transformed within four years. We can do that so that she can show an example. I think if women utilise their voting power, they can produce at least two women governors. If all Nigerian women unite, they can empower the women in those states by providing them with the resources they need. I believe we can do it because we are the voters. I don’t understand why we always queue up to vote but we do not think of ourselves. Women do not even need to be bribed to vote. Because the money dispensed is used for rigging not the actual voting exercise. Women queue up year after year to vote. We need the women movement to reenergise ourselves to go out and pick some local governments and declare that we must have women chairmen in these local governments. But if we keep relying on the political system and political parties we have today, it will never happen.
What was it like working with Obasanjo?
I worked with an Obasanjo that was different from the Obasanjo after I left the government and the Obasanjo today. When I was Minister, remember that it was the period right after a harsh military time. So everyone came on board with hope and aspirations. I remember every leader in this world, whether from developed and developing countries, paying their homage to Nigeria. The president we had then was a very good president. He was compassionate and very patriotic; he wanted Nigeria to move forward. There was a lot of attention put into designing programmes, problems on how to get the bureaucracy to change direction and accept new thinking and new ways.
He truly gave me a lot of support as Women Affairs Minister. As I said earlier on, as a minority, unless you have a leadership committed to such ideals such as women or youth, mainstreaming it won’t happen but he was committed. He was committed to youth and women issues. I remember, when I brought the women and youth policies to the Council, he took time and read them page by page. So we had a lot of support at that time. We wanted key positions to be given to women to prove ourselves. It was during his time that we had Minister of Defence, the Chief Justice of the Federal High Court, Director General NAFDAC, and others. He was very passionate about women and youth issues in the first four years. I have no idea what happened afterwards. As I see it, the president I worked with became so different from the one that ruled between 2003 and 2007. But he was very supportive of women, children and youth issues.
At that time, even the wastage of resources was not as much as other times because there was a lot of transfer of resources into those areas. During that time, I remember that the council was very democratic because we were a Council that could oppose the President’s memo. He would bring a memo to the Council and we would oppose it and it would have to be withdrawn. So I don’t know of the other times, from 2003-2007 because there were a lot of issues in Nigeria including the third term debate. But I honestly had a nice time as Women Affairs Minister and I don’t think since that time there has been as much support from the government to that Ministry. Although the Ministry had little money in the Ministry at that time, women affairs was being mainstreamed into the agriculture, health, and commerce sectors. So for me, working with him, I had a smooth ride.