‘More women need to be advocates for their rights’

Moji Makanjuola is an ambassador for UN Women. In this interview, she speaks on various efforts to pass the Gender Equality and Opportunity Bill, and how women need to fight and support other women to survive. How far have you gone as an ambassador to advocate for the passage of the gender equality bill?  I […]

Moji Makanjuola is an ambassador for UN Women. In this interview, she speaks on various efforts to pass the Gender Equality and Opportunity Bill, and how women need to fight and support other women to survive.

How far have you gone as an ambassador to advocate for the passage of the gender equality bill?
 I am very involved in the Gender Equality and Opportunities Bill that was unfortunately put aside. We are working assiduously to ensure that it goes back to the Senate. Many people misconstrue gender as a woman thing. Gender concerns men and women, depending on what side of the coin you are speaking to. In the East, we talk about our boys not being in the school, while in the North it is the girls. But on a scale, the women are more susceptible to a lot of the discrimination – lack of opportunities to forge ahead.
I sit on the advocacy committee, speaking to men, women – and thank God – a lot of men, they are our fathers, brothers, uncles, they now understand the need to have an inclusive arrangement. It is not a selfish issue; it is an issue about development. God created us men and women and we all have our responsibilities.
 
People think the GEO Bill is a replication of others and therefore isn’t really necessary?
 There is nothing like the GEO Bill. The others are bogus and not specific. It is the specificity of this bill that’s making us push for it. Remember the journey of the National Health Act. The constitution in a way has something on health, but we needed a specific thing that will drive that sector. You get a job and they ask you, ‘I hope you are not going to get pregnant in the next three years’, as if it is a crime to be pregnant. You are procreating and it takes two to tango. When a man loses his wife, nobody says shave your hair or drink water from the corpse. Everything is aimed at the woman.
There are some sore points some people didn’t like in the bill. We are going to sit together and harmonise it. But we are going to go back to the Senate, get it right and pass that bill. Look at the recent wife killings, rape of girls-and now boys are vulnerable. Go to IDP camps, majority of people there are women. They are not part of the trouble, they didn’t start the insurgency. There is no femininity to Boko Haram, but there is femininity to poverty and the spoils of war.
 
 The Violence Against Children Act was passed, but it hasn’t done much to reduce violence against children. What are your thoughts on that?
 Before now, you didn’t hear about violence, people didn’t discuss it, but now people know there is a penalty for violence; people will speak on it, so that the act can be implemented. People now know if you are caught, there is penalty. You now can say, according to the laws of Nigeria, I’m entitled to these. The world has become dynamic, we shouldn’t be stagnant. There are some laws and traditions that really for a long time should have been forgotten, but they still exist because there are no laws to change them.
 
Do you subscribe to the notion that the bill is an elite bill that will take very long to trickle down?
I don’t. It is a wrong notion. It is people who want to bring the bill down that will ascribe that to it. Are you saying the Nigerian Constitution is only for people who can read and write? It is for you and me, no matter where you reside

You have always had passion for women and children. What drives you?
I come from a home with more women than men. Some memories, experiences, interactions over the years have encouraged me to speak out for women. Women do so much but so little attention is paid to what we do. A woman is the strength of the family, community, leadership but oftentimes women are not given their space. It has gotten to the point where you are not begging for your space; you are demanding your entitlement. God in his wisdom created man, he didn’t leave him alone, he gave him a partner, and so we should be partners in progress.
Ultimately I am who I am today because my father-I’m his first child-believed that what a man can do a woman can do. He said to us-bless his soul-Moji is a woman and is the head of this family. Immediately after me is a boy, I have a letter he wrote me 20 years ago, in which he said I needed to do some things as the leader of the family. He said, as my first child and leader.
The women in my family are very strong, independent, empowered. If you live with those kind of aunts all your life, you can’t be found wanting. I know the innate strength of a woman is not fully explored because of the limitations that culture and religion bring to bear. A woman should be treated as a human being, not as an addendum, she should be respected as a part of society, and should get what a man gets.
 
You are country ambassador for UN Women. What does that entail?
 I must care about women, promote UN Women’s agenda, be seen out there, to give visibility to what UN Women is doing, and what Nigerian women are capable of. UN Women in Nigeria is working for Nigeria. They say in every five Africans, one is a Nigerian and that one could be a woman. I signed on for three years, and we haven’t done enough. I hope at the end of it, we can bring maternal mortality down; have more women governors, I pray.
Women should not give up. We haven’t started yet. Women in position should mention others. We are losing track of a lot of things in Nigeria. It is not about naira and kobo, it is about the essence of life and opportunities and moving people. Let’s grow human beings, it is a collective responsibility. Let’s be able to cry on each other’s shoulders. Until we do that, we can’t move on.