‘Educating girl-child key for societal progress’

What is your take on girl child education especially in the north?In the north in the past girls used to sit at home, cook and clean while a few boys go to school. Somehow along the line it has improved.  During the colonial days missionaries were going everywhere but when we took over our culture […]

What is your take on girl child education especially in the north?
In the north in the past girls used to sit at home, cook and clean while a few boys go to school. Somehow along the line it has improved.  During the colonial days missionaries were going everywhere but when we took over our culture somehow seemed to have taken over in the north.
In Kebbi State for instance there is a very high level of literate women. I have friends from there whose mothers schooled at queen’s school Ede as far back.  Along the line during the military era and initial civilian regimes, girl child education wasn’t emphasized and we lost a lot during those times.
Luckily in the last few years there has been a lot of advocacy on the girl child and people are getting more and more aware and sending their children especially daughters to school.
 If we do not educate our girl child our society is not going to progress. Because the basic building block of any society are women. If they are not educated, they wouldn’t be able to impact knowledge effectively as they should.
I want to look at myself as a role model for women from the north-west of Nigeria. I mentioned in the beginning that I am a pediatrician which means I look after children but because I am a woman, I always get approached by all sorts of people. When you mention the name Medicaid in Abuja today, it is synonymous with cancer. People think we are a cancer centre and that I am a cancer doctor.
I am not. I am a pediatric doctor. But because I am a woman, a lot of women come to me on breast cancer issues. So I have found myself pulled into it by the mere fact that I am an educated woman. So if we have more and more of these it will get better.

What is your advice for young girls out there who want to be like you?
To the young girls I say, you have to work hard. You have to work harder than the boys because you are a woman. There are a lot of opportunities out there but you have to compete as effectively and even more with the boys.
 You tend to have more things to do around the home as a girl so the time to study is less but you need to somehow or the other cut down on your recreational time and work hard.
Once there is hard work and you have the basic building blocks then everything is achievable. I don’t fear anything at all. Once I set my mind on achieving something I do it, and I think that is one of the ways girls can overcome the obstacles that society and our culture places on their path.
You have to be determined, focused and God fearing, know that you are doing this with one mind and nothing is going to stand in your way. The only way you can do that is if you are well equipped.  You cannot become a doctor or an engineer if you do not pass your exams. The only way you can pass your exams is to read hard.The same way if you want to be a trader you cannot be a trader if you do not know how to take your stock, go out there, market your good, work hard and it is achievable.
So to the girls yes though society places you at a disadvantage culturally and educationally but if you work hard anything is achievable.
A lot of women in the country today are dying from various forms of cancers as someone who owns an outfit where women come for tests, and others, how do you think this can be reduced among the womenfolk?
The most common cancers in Nigeria are breasts and cervical cancers. All of them are catching up with each other now and one problem is that we do not have enough statistics that tell us things.
But it is a massive problem and the beginning of it is awareness. How do you become aware? It is by being educated and  knowing what is happening around you  through listening to talks and  reading about them. For those who cannot read, we go around the villages creating awareness and telling women what to do and how to look after themselves .
I find myself in the area of  breast cancer as a result of my work, education and my gender because I am a woman people come to ask me all these things.
In the north there is cultural inhibition. Two of my grandmothers died of breast cancer. Both of them were discovered late because they are shy,  it is a sensitive part of the female anatomy.
They hid it under their hijabs and they do not say until it has become a serating mass or you can perceive the smell. One of them was a bit earlier, intervention was sought but we lost her.
The second one totally refused to have anything done she stayed with her breast cancer until it killed her. She didn’t take it up or go to hospital.
Political leaders, religious leaders, educated family members, mothers and  everyone need to educate the younger ones and even the older ones that are not aware,  that soon as you see something wrong in your breasts or your circle or you are bleeding abnormally seek help.
There is always help around the corner. Whether it is at a district general hospital, teaching hospital or private hospital. Most of us have got access to help on every level.
We are always fond of saying government hasn’t done this or that, which is true the government can be better but   in the mean time we are not all going to die of cancer, we have to do our own part.
The other important part is prevention, living a healthy life style and eating better.
 One of the reasons why the incident of cancers are increasing in sub-Saharan Africa is because we are adopting western life style more and more. We are eating like they do and our children are sitting on couches playing with ipads and not running outside as we used to. We are eating processed foods instead of the natural ones that our parents and grandparents grew up with.
Unhealthy life style, smoking, alcohol, contraception, are all things that can led to high incidence of cancer. So if we avoid them and try to live better, that is a good beginning as well.

How do you think maternal and child mortality can be tackled especially women who refuse to go to hospital to give birth?
That brings back the issue of girl child education. Maternal mortality is about the woman, the mother, if she knew better it would not be possible for her to sit at home and go through nine months carrying a parasite, a baby is a parasite that is eating from resources in her body, and totally refuse to go to hospital.
 In some cases it is not totally her fault as she is not the decision making person of the family or the financial earner so she has to rely or abide by her husband’s wishes. Some men do not like allowing their wives to go the hospital to be examined by males which is understandable. This again brings us back to girl child education. If we allow more girls to be educated, it will enable your wife to be examined by more females.
Government can also train and retrain Traditional Birth Attendants (TBA). They can go round villages and hospitals. It is not in all cases that you need to have consultant gynecologists present at birth.
A well trained TBA can do just as well in a lot of cases. If women attend ante-natal regularly it is the biggest way to reduce maternal mortality and indirectly infant mortality. The whole principle of ante-natal care is to pick up any problem and care for the women during the gestational period.

With the 2015 general elections around the corner what do you think are the roles women can play either as candidates or supporting their spouses?
The elections are going to be determined by women because they are in the majority. They are also more aware and coming out en masse and will play a huge role that affect us, no school for our girls but if
I am actively involved in politics in Kebbi State and I am calling on all Nigerian women to make it. We cannot continue to sit down and complain about things that affect us. We have to let our voices be heard by excising our right. If all women spend all their time on face book and twitter then we are not going to have a say.
We have to come out and vote for candidates that we believe in. We need to move away from party, ethnic  and religious sentiment and vote for the right candidates that will move our locality forward and bring change to you, your area,  the people, and the country as a whole.