Tribute to a great woman: Bilkisu Yusuf

In the acknowledgment page on my doctoral thesis I noted the openness with which I was received by the FOMWAN leaders during my years of research in Nigeria and I thanked especially Hajiya Bilkisu Yusuf for having opened so many doors. This was far from an overstatement. Bilkisu was part of my journey throughout my […]

In the acknowledgment page on my doctoral thesis I noted the openness with which I was received by the FOMWAN leaders during my years of research in Nigeria and I thanked especially Hajiya Bilkisu Yusuf for having opened so many doors. This was far from an overstatement. Bilkisu was part of my journey throughout my research, from the early days when she brought me to a national executive meeting of FOMWAN, and throughout my ten years of engagement in Nigeria as I worked to promote interfaith dialogue and peacebuilding especially among women. Shortly after we met at a trade fair show in Abuja where she was at a FOMWAN stand, she invited me to her house. I arrived and could see that she was tired but she served me dinner which she herself had cooked and we sat talking from 7 to 11 PM, telling me her own story, giving me such open and honest insights on the women’s secular and religious movement in Nigeria, sharing her views of women’s struggles as well as the religious/political struggles in the country, and then linking me with so many of the key influential social changers among the women in Nigeria. Amazing!
I was writing on the implications of Muslim and Christian feminist discourse for interreligious dialogue, using Northern Nigeria as a case study. The fact that Bilkisu’s name is referred to or she is cited at least 18 times (according to the index) in the resulting publication, reflects in some small way the magnitude of Bilkisu’s influence not only on my own work but on the various but related fields of interest.
Bilkisu was a support, a guide, an advisor. I can say without any exaggeration that the Women’s Interfaith Council which we established in 2010 and of which Bilkisu was a Board Member, would not have been born, and certainly would not have survived, if it were not for Bilkisu’s presence and support. Muslim women in particular believed in her, trusted her, drew strength from her, and were ready to follow her advice and example. The NGO world and the world of religious leaders all knew they had to take her seriously. She was comfortable in all circles, confident in herself, in her religion, in her vision and her beliefs, articulate, knowledgeable, intelligent, unafraid, yet humble and unassuming, convinced and respectful.  She will be sorely missed, by people in all quarters, not only for her person but for her influence and her commitment. I find it hard to imagine that this dynamic tenacious woman could have been taken through the final door so suddenly and so horrendously but we can only trust and pray that she is now at peace. May her death help greater security and control to be introduced during hajj services in Mecca and may her life help greater equality of men and women to be found worldwide, and especially in Nigeria, as people walk and work together to build a more equal and peaceful world.
Bilkisu was a woman of very strong faith, a truly committed Muslim woman, who loved Islam and believed wholeheartedly that it expressed God’s will for humanity and was the path through which human beings could find meaning and direction. While I have no doubt that she believed in the superiority of Islam, Bilkisu was very much open to dialogue and showed the greatest respect for myself as a Catholic religious, for other Christian leaders and indeed for people who she knew to be convinced, sincere and committed, and she was more than ready to work with us in dialogue and to promote the spirit of dialogue among the Muslim community. Bilkisu sought to obey God in her life, and expressed this loudly in her patient, tenacious and courageous commitment to promoting the rights of women in Nigeria.
She was a founding member of the feminist activist group called Women in Nigeria (WIN), as well as of the movement for the promotion of Muslim women, the Federation of Muslim Women’s Associations in Nigeria (FOMWAN). She was the first woman editor of a newspaper in Nigeria, no small feat in a cultural as well as religious context that continues to be patriarchal to its core. She was a founder of women’s rights NGOs including Abantu for Development, Vision Trust Foundation and countless others. She worked closely to push research on the rights of women under the sharia in Nigeria and believed women’s rights could best be defended in the Northern Nigerian Muslim context if expressed under an Islamic framework. She was influential in bringing Transparency International to Nigeria, and actively engaged herself in monitoring elections so that transparency and accountability became at least key words in all electoral manifestos. She was a committed family woman and yet they had to share her very generously with the public space. In the space of one week, Bilkisu could be at an international seminar on gender in Beijing, a training programme on peacebuilding in New York, a high level government meeting in Abuja, send her weekly column to the Daily Trust and Leadership newspapers, be present in Kano to support local women in an empowerment exercise, and yet find time to listen, advise and share dates on her mat in her simple home in Kaduna.
Bilkisu, sincere thanks. Indeed your kind of spirit can never be stamped out. It is indeed for me a great privilege that one of your last publications is an article which we co-authored, and which has just been published in Women, Religion and Peacebuilding: Illuminating the Unseen, Susan Hayward & Katherine Marshall, USIP Press Books, September 2015. May this book and all your other great efforts during your journey on earth, be instrumental in helping women of all faiths join hands and be Mothers of a culture of peace in our world.  Nagode sosai Bilkisu. Rest in peace.
From an indebted Catholic Religious: Kathleen McGarvey