Marie Fatayi-Williams:Nigeria Urgently Needs Marshall Plan on Poverty Alleviation

In line with the celebration of the International Women’s Day, the President, Cosmopolitan Women’s Club, Lagos, Dame Marie Fatayi-Williams, in this interview speaks about the need for more leadership and decision-making opportunities for women in governments at all levels as well as in the private sector, just as she unfolds her agenda for the Club. Peter Uzoho brings the excerpts:

Can you tell us about the Cosmopolitan Women’s Club and what it was established to achieve?

The Cosmopolitan Women’s Club of Lagos is a club of dignified women and Lagosians, who are not below the age of 50. It is for women who are indigenes of Lagos State and for those who are married to Lagosians. Ours is a members’ only club, a charitable club, a non-governmental organisation and we are non-partisan. It is club for those aged 50 years and above; people who have served the nation in the past, either in top government positions, corporates or their private business. These are people who have a lot to offer the society and want to contribute towards development of the society. The age ranged from 50 years to 70 years. Seventy years is the cutoff point. After seven years, you cannot be a member, but once you are a member, you continue to be a member even after you must have clocked 70 years.  It is a club that has a focus and direction as to where they want to go and what they want to do. So, we only have members who believe in our ethos.

In your message on the International Women’s Day, you wrote about how women are increasingly breaking glass ceilings; how women are bearing the brunt of economic hardship as well as inequality. Can you shed more light on some of these issues?

If you look at it, women even before the Beijing Conference and after the conference, have tried to put themselves in the forefront of development and to ensure that the glass ceiling is broken and that we become empowered and relevant. That is because we are that segment of the society that is over 50 per cent, so we cannot be ignored and left behind. We cannot because of the patriarchal society not rear our heads. The discrimination against women and violence against women, poverty, women’s rights not being human rights, and a lot more have been the issues over the years. But all of those things started changing after a lot of pressure, advocacy and the Beijing Conference made us to realise that women’s rights are human rights. Even at that time, we found out that an association like the National Council on Women’s Society wasn’t there, but late Mrs. Adefarasi, late Mrs. Emily Aig-Imoukhuede, and several others, were all in the forefront of the struggle and we were the young ones that worked with them to put pressure on the issues of women’s rights. So, Women Affairs rose from being a department in the Ministry of Social Welfare and Youth, to becoming a Commission during the regime of General Babangida; we continued to advocate and we ended up having a full-fledged Ministry which was brought by Mrs. Sanni Abacha, just before the Beijing Conference. With that, women started being in charge of positions in the States and the federal government by being in charge of the Women Ministry. So, that was a huge progress at that time. Slowly and steadily we were making progress and of course, the 30 per cent Affirmative Action, which has never been attained became a focus; we also started talking about political inclusion and more women in decision-making tables.

That is having women in decision-making tables not because you have a pretty face, but because you are endowed and you are a woman of substance, a woman with intellect who is capable of handling the position she is being given. So, women actually started becoming upwardly mobile. In the corporate world, it was not that difficult because like abroad, just as we had the likes of Margaret Thatcher, who was a no-nonsense Prime Minister to the extent that they nicknamed her iron lady. Margaret Thatcher was virtuous, a woman of stature and you could see that even in her dressing, it was not a dressing that was tempting; she carried her handbag with so much dignity and she was a strong woman who could deliver and she left a good legacy, just like Mrs. Ransome Kuti, Margaret Ekpo, Amina Gambo of Nigeria, even though they never got to same leadership position as Margaret Thatcher. But they had those values that guided their actions. Today, we have younger women who have become Prime Ministers in their countries abroad, especially in the Nordic countries. But Nigeria hasn’t gotten to that level and even the gains we have made, it looks like no sooner have we broken few glass ceiling, the glass is now glazed and it is now becoming more difficult to push through. But we found out that in the corporate world, the young women of today have risen on the shoulders of women who had fought the fight and so there is more recognition for them and more allowance for them to get to positions of empowerment in their operations better than past women who had gone through that terrain.   

So, in terms of legislation, what would you like to see for more women participation in politics?

Did you see where we are in terms of the Gender Bill? The bill put together by a group of NGOs was thrown out. We feel that an amalgamation of women is very essential to what we do. We must come together with one voice. The Aba Women’s riot, was a success, even though I still do not consider it as a riot. It was a movement to push for the rights of Nigerian women. Until Nigerian women come together, speak with one voice, that is when we can make the desired progress. You want to be part of the political process in a political party, you come with one small voice, the men are more and the women have no voice. Why did they legislate against women having a political party? 

But that was the ninth Assembly, is there no way the bills can be re-introduced in this present National Assembly?

The five Gender Bills that were rejected we intend to partner with a group of NGOs and re-present them. We believe that the present lawmakers may decide to pass them having understood what it means and having seen the depletion in the Senate, the House of Representatives and politics generally. But beyond the gender bills, I am talking about how to sustain the momentum. We can’t keep waiting until when they give us the opportunity. Remember we have some form of majority. For example, we need to find out why they won’t allow us to have a women’s political party. If women have their own political party, we are not saying men should not join, but it is going to be a political party for Nigerian women, with men as members. We do have women who are billionaires and they have a lot of money; we do have women who operate in different industries and every woman has a talent, so you get everybody to the table and also men who are interested in belonging to the political party to join us. The day we would achieve that is the day the history and politics of Nigeria will change for better. That is because that party would be an amalgamation of brains, intelligence, quality and quantity. Women are everywhere and that is why they come to us during every political process to beg for us to register and beg for our votes during elections. Why can’t we that they are begging be the ones to dictate the pace and for them to join our political party? We can do it. But it is because there is divide and rule and women allow it to happen. When you divide and rule us and put us in little boxes which we knowingly or unknowingly accept, then you have destroyed our power base.

So, in order to address the issue of extreme poverty and inequality among women, what type of programmes and policies would you recommend to the federal government?

The issue of poverty has become so endemic and has become generational. It is a national issue and not only an issue for women. It borders on our economy. Women are the poorest of the poor. If you say you are going to just give palliatives, for how long will that last? How does that sustain a woman? We have to sit down as a country and design a Marshall Plan on poverty alleviation, not only for women, but for the entire country. If you have someone like Akinwunmi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), if I am President Bola Tinubu, I would adopt him to see how we can benefit from his leadership at the AfDB. Look at the Grameen Bank, that was another thing that would have been used to break this cycle of poverty. I don’t know why everything that works in every other country, when it comes to Nigeria it finds a graveyard. In Bangladesh, the Grameen Bank was successful, it came here as People’s Bank, but where are we today? Poverty is still here. Akinwunmi Adesina talked about introducing a Youth Employment Development Bank, let us support him and ensure that the youths are fully involved and it should be a thing that everybody can contribute. So, we’ve got to do things systematically with processes and plans stated out. We need to develop short-term, medium term and long-term plans for poverty alleviation and follow it through. This fire brigade approach we have for every issue has not worked in the past, it is not working now and will not work in the future. If we want to really deliver our people from poverty, there is a process and plan that must be followed. We women are able to multi-task and run our families, even with low budget. Empower women and give them the technology they need to carry out their businesses, especially those in agriculture. They need the technology to be able to make the best garri. Now, I am seeing that garri is being imported from China, because it looks finer, whereas we should be exporting garri. We need farmers’ friendly technology that can allow women in the rural areas to see farming as a business that brings money to families, both in rural and urban areas. The moment farming becomes a money spinning venture and not for sustenance, then you know that there would be transformation in the rural areas and communities. With this we need to do a lot of education and advocacy in the communities.

What are your plans for the Club and what should members expect from you?

Our Club is going to be 20 years next year. But from what I told you, it is as if we had been cocooned sort of. But the past presidents did a lot of things. If you remember, years ago before Akinwunmi Ambode became Governor of Lagos State, we had a conference in which we brought all the gubernatorial candidates to a town hall meeting to come and tell us their plans for Lagos State, especially for women. We also have a scholarship fund that we give to Pacelli School for the Blind and Children with disabilities. We train children directly through Pacelli and one of them has gone to the university. We have about three of them we are training presently. Of course, we do a lot of advocacy. For me, in the next three years, which is stated in our constitution, except you have a second term, I have decided to have a broad theme. I decided to call it: “Validating Purpose, Upskilling, Upscaling and Advocacy for Human Development through Social Impact Projects.” This includes a lot. We are looking at a State where people are hungry. We want to do a food bank. We want to have a food bank that runs like anything you see abroad, if you can do it and then you get a lot of inventory. But with that kind of thing we would need a lot of support from the security agencies to do it successfully. Let’s say we decide to pick a community, because we cannot feed everybody in Lagos, develop a food bank and administer food to people in that area. We have something like that in England called The Passage, which the Catholic church does in Westminster.

  The poor goes there every week, they give them food and at Christmas, they give them a box of food. Also, in Cosmopolitan Women’s Club, every sitting First Lady is an honorary member. For example, Mrs. Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu is an honorary member and having such a person as a member, you can imagine how successful we can be if we key into her own pet project. We have seen that her passion is on the fight against gender violence and children and it will be nice for us to work with her on that. We are also going to look at empowerment programmes for women entrepreneurs. For example, I will like to see that every year we support if not 100 women, at least 50 of them in either vocation training or in upscaling their businesses and ensuring that they are able to rise higher than what they have put together for themselves in terms of business. We have a member in our Club who is 90 years, Mrs. Shade Thomas-Fahm, who is one of our Trustees. This woman was the first to promote buy Nigeria and dress Nigeria with fabrics such as aso-oke, adire and whatever. She is trending in England for what she has done for the fashion industry and if only it was followed through, we wouldn’t be talking about what we are talking about now.

So, I will like to see how we can partner her and sustain this dream. Now we see our adire all over the world and people are buying it for thousands of dollars. Where is the source? Nigeria, but they would never say it’s made in Ife in Nigeria. Does anybody know that the leather and whatever they use in making shoes come from Kano? No. They are all taken away in raw forms, processed and then we go out and buy. So, we want to work with people like Shade Thomas-Fahm, create awareness and get the younger people that are coming up now to key into this vision and see how we can upscale. You know some of these things you cannot do alone, you have to work with other associations and other people. Women capacity development is also very important. Women must be respected for who they are. If you do not have your values and dignity right, then people would take you for granted. Any woman leader, be it in business, politics or the corporate world and is not able to uplift other women has not done justice and pride to her womanhood.

To be a woman in an empowered position, your legacy must be that you have empowered so many others behind you who would continue after you. Don’t be the lone star. Additionally, the Club has also decided that we would work closely with the Nigerian Conservation Foundation on the issue of environment and in keeping Lagos clean. I have a passion for that as well because the Catholic Church has what is called Laudato Si, which is an encyclical by Pope Francis, that has become a working document in the United Nations on environment issues. That document is so profound and has been well received. The Catholic Church in Nigeria is seriously working on that. We have desk on environment. Before Lagos State banned styrofoam (a type of plastic widely used as food containers), we (Catholic Church in Lagos), had already talked about it.

So, in the Archdiocese of Lagos State, we had already banned the use of such plastics and if you use plastics, we always advised that you reduce, re-use and recycle. Actually, every September, the church comes up with a project on the environment. Pope Francis says we must not turn the world into a pile of filths by dumping. We dump so much and it is becoming a problem. So, he says we have to listen to the two cries: the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. The cry of the poor is so much that it is affecting everybody. The cry of the earth is such that we are depleting and polluting the earth. The pollution is too much and we have plastics everywhere. He has also proposed that when we use plastics, we make it such that those that collect the plastics can sell them and make money. So, when you collect the plastics, you take it to a plastic bank and you are paid for it. In northern Nigeria, I hear that those who collect the plastics are given rice, beans, grains for the amount of plastics that they bring. So, some of our schools and churches have where you can dump your plastics. 

 The church has also said to its priests that when they build, they should build with the environment in mind and use environment-friendly bulbs. Also, concretising your whole area is not allowed. You must leave some areas green in your building for people to be able to see nature. Pollution on every sort impacts on health and living standards. So, we are trying tell our women to change their lifestyles. If you used to go to the market with a plastic and you tell people to give you 10 plastic bags for 10 things that you buy, dedicate one shopping bag to go to the market and reject plastics. Also, cook only that which your family can eat and do not waste. Wildlife is the work of God and must be respected. So, you cannot just say you want to kill all of them; you want to destroy the forest and eat all of them. Those things are sacred and must be preserved. We must love ourselves, love God and love nature.