 Today is International Women's Day and its theme for this year is breaking the bias. Already Nigerian women seem to be doing just that as members of the House of Representatives have just rescinded their decision on 3 bills earlier rejected in the process of the 1999 Constitution amendment. Now the bills are on indiginship, citizenship and 35% affirmative action for women. Mae'n bwysig i'r cyfnodol yn cyfansiol, a mynd i'n dweud o'r unig cyfansiol yma yn y casgliadau Cyfrindigol. Yn y gweleddoedd hynny, mae gynllun gweithio'r Cyfrindigol ar gyfer yr Unigol, oedd yn gweithio'r bwysig i'r bwysig wedi'i bwysig yn cyfansiol. Yna'n gweithio'r cyfrindigol ar gyfer yr angylbrig. Mae'n gweithio'r cyfrindigol yn gweithio cyfrindigol, ac mae'n gweithio'r cyfrindigol yn gweithio cyfrindigol. I thank you so much, ladies, for joining me. Thank you very much. And happy International Women's Day. Same to you here. Thank you very much. Great to be. I'm going to start with you, Ankyl. It's interesting that we're at this juncture. For some women, if not most Nigerian women, this is a win because I remember last week the reactions that I was getting from women when the bills were thrown out. In fact, it took the first lady and some other women to come into the National Assembly for this bill, and they all left very disappointed. Aside from the fact that this bill has been rescinded, why do you think it's taken the Nigerian woman so long to be able to be heard in terms of these kinds of issues, bills when it comes to indigentship. A Nigerian man is allowed to give his wife indigentship, but a woman who's married to an outsider cannot do that. So it seems like the woman keeps taking the back seat. Why has it been that for so long? Good evening, everyone. I believe it has been so for so long, simply because there is a lot attached to it. We have cultural issues in Nigeria and in Africa. We have religious issues and customary things. Women are not supposed to be here. Women are not supposed to be there. You should be seen and not heard. If you recall in 2016 the issue of women belonging to the other room and belonging in the kitchen and stuff like that at an international forum by no less than the president of Nigeria. I mean, when women are faced with this type of oppression, if you like, within the political system when attitude like that is coming from the president, you begin to wonder what it is that is going to become of women in politics. And also like I said, women we have all these cultural biases where it seems as if if a woman is in politics or is in activism she's got to be single perhaps she has no husband perhaps and if she does maybe the husband is dead or divorced because it seems as if women can't really accept themselves without actually having meanings external meanings and their greater meanings read into some of the obstacles that women face when they go into politics. So I'm not surprised that first of all women are rising up now to the point where we're having a situation where the men are going to step back look, we had bills that were presented on behalf of women, those bills were for the benefit of women now when that is presented in the National Assembly where women voted for men and then these men turn around and deny us things that are meant to be in our interest you begin to wonder what else these men are prepared to deny women in politics in Nigeria as a whole. Interesting Let me push you a bit as we see today I'm sure that you're aware most of the CEOs in Nigerian banks are women, women are breaking the glass ceiling in these regards but when it comes to politics it seems to be the woman finds herself in between a rock and a hard place and I was just saying it a few hours ago that the most a woman holds position wise in political parties is either she's a treasurer or the woman leader then the woman is the same person who galvanises support they seem to be the ones who are the one that brings people together to vote just as Miss Briggs has said so why is it so difficult for us to break grounds in the political system aside from the cultural bias could women be also part of their own problem? So I want to put a broader perspective on this struggle all through history the struggle for right civil rights human rights and indeed women's rights has been a journey and not a destination so these things take time and it requires the people concerned in this case us women to raise up our voices collectively and ask for our rights you see even in developed economies like the United States they are still trying to get civil rights for black people extending rights to minority groups so this is a journey and the time has come in 2022 where we women have spoken or speaking with one voice to say not just in the boardroom but in the political sphere we want to have a seat at the table now some women have already broken the bounds as you said but it is important that we want now is for that opportunity to be available to all women and for that opportunity to be embedded in our constitution so that any young girl knows that the constitution affords her the opportunity to reach her height whether it is politically in business and in whatever sphere she is she is a part of this country she has a right to aspire and to get to the top of this country let me just push you forward in the political sphere now we've seen the case of the only female president that year who didn't even have her friends vote for her but maybe we should also consider or should we consider the politics at the local level is that not where we should start from again we see women come together to put monies together to buy a Shreibie we see women put monies together to go on girls trips how many women can come together to support a female candidate whether it be a councillor whether it be a local government chairman whatever it may be can we see that galvanised support and how do we even go about this in the first instance because what I saw today at the national assembly is that women are the most important women need to continue to organise and to focus our attention our energies, our finances our resources towards what we want today I have an aspirant for a health of rep in my constituency who is a woman today I have a woman governor aspirant in my state Ambassador Coyotoyo I have a dozen other men who are aspiring for the governorship of Cross River state so increasingly with this voice that we've come out with women will aspire when you don't have role models there then it's difficult for women to aspire when you don't have the collective calling for this then it is difficult so we hope that coming into 2023 women will organise we will focus our vote we will vote for women and we will vote for men who recognise the important role that women play so that's what we're going into 2023 through the political parties and through our communities we will do that great back to you Ms Briggs she talks about mentoring and I want to push you on that you are one of the strongest voices in the Niger Delta we saw you push for young people in the thick of the Niger Delta militancy are there young women that you are mentoring because you see like I said a lot of young women are yet to understand or come into the fullness of their purpose and they need some hand holding is there a fora in let's say for example river state or biasa state where young women are groomed for leadership we see these things happening in other places but is there such a thing because we also see young men being groomed for leadership but how many young women are being hand held or taught what to expect in the future and how to be ready for it it's one thing to be to groom either young ladies or young gentlemen for political roles in Nigeria as we have it today but you see when this grooming is going on and then on the other hand you hear the people who are supposed to be grooming them saying you know what we do agree that it is about time for you to get to the table to take a seat at the table but then you have to wait until I am done with what I am doing that means that if I'm 70-something years old and I'm aspiring to be the president of Nigeria and I need the support or the galvanising of youths to support me that is very much okay but then you have to wait until I'm maybe 80-something years old now for me I don't call that grooming anybody is a form of deceit now in my own process you referred to the Niger Delta and in river state by Elsa state I find definitely in the past few decades that I have been at this that we are in a struggle within a struggle women are in a struggle within a struggle they are in a struggle even for fellow women to take them seriously and we are in a struggle where our folks our husbands, our brothers our uncles, our partners don't take us seriously so in my own case I came from a background of being encouraged to be whom I have become today but how many people how many young ladies have had that sort of opportunity so we do need to start with our young women starting from primary school age to make them to understand that they need to be strengthened in the way they think for themselves and they need to acquaint themselves with justice what is right and what is wrong what is a truth what is a lie and that they have to participate in the role of nation building they have to participate in the role of becoming whatever you want to become in the future so it is an uphill battle for women it is an uphill battle for young people today because of the strategies they must take which is sacrificial and they have to be very careful not to compromise what they are aiming for it is so easy to find yourself in a compromising circumstances and situation even before you know actually that you finally find yourself in an entrapment if you like but it is possible I have come to realise that it is possible first of all to be able to orientate our our youth our young women particularly for them to understand that they and they alone must make these sacrifices and must participate in the processes that they are dreaming about for the within the next 10 years or 20 years depending on where you are today I see no reason why we don't have female governance I know Coyo very well she's my friend she's a colleague of sort in activism but I also do know how far she has come to find herself at a point today where she's actually said that she will aspire and not only that she will aspire that she does qualify to aspire and quite honestly that she's very likely to do a much better job than anybody else have done before her but as I said it is an uphill battle especially for women back to you Miss James still talking about mentoring here you can catch them young because look around you I was just talking to a young lady a few minutes ago and she talked about social media and tick-tucking we see a lot of interesting sometimes very saddening things on social media and a poor representation of our young women who are these models that these young women can look up to that we have enough of them in our communities, in our world I mean it's easy to say can we look around and find one that we can say well that's my role model that's the kind of person that I want to mentor me are these young people even being pointed in that direction in the first instance I think for the very young we need to look to the educational system from primary school young women, young girls and young men need to be taught about the role of women in society the role of women in nation building the role of men in nation building and having men and women side by side in that process so we have children spend most of their time in school so that is where it needs to start in primary school in secondary school in university these structures when they are setting up institutions and clubs and organisations those places need to be gender friendly gender neutral and so that they learn and instill the principles of gender equity from a young age throughout their educational system and into society and the more we have role models in politics, in business you mentioned that the banking MDs today the more we have those role models the more this will become the norm today it's available for very few women and we want to mainstream the idea of gender equity gender balance in our society I'm a bit and I'm going to pose the same question to both ladies I don't necessarily know if we should put that at the foot of the educators I'm saying this because in today's world it's the big brother celebrities it's the money guys that are more intriguing for our youngsters so they skip the process in between they see the finished product and so that's who everybody wants to be because these guys are the to make me to say the 30 billion gang or whatever they call them these days and so they don't necessarily want to look to you because you know you might not necessarily be wearing the kinds of things that they're interested in or driving the kinds of cars and living the kind of life, the jet set life but again should that responsibility solely be to the educators yes I know that if you go to school abroad you have bring your dad to work days that they bring in people that do different things and so these children can aspire to be one of those but we don't have that in our systems here yet I believe but where does the family come in in all of this? I still believe the school system is very important because that is a structured environment and the issue of nation building broadly including the role of women should be taught in schools really there is also a role for the family and society and celebrity culture but you know with tiktok and social media and celebrity culture these things happen in 2, 3 minutes if that whereas nation building is a serious issue needs to be discussed from different perspectives and dealt into so it's not something a celebrity on tiktok can transmit in a 4 second video these are serious issues that need to be talked about seriously within proper structure and context it's multi layered and everyone has a role to play religion has a role to play our traditional rulers our traditional institutions we have a role to play for me as a woman I have a role as a traditional ruler to provide an example to the young girls and women in my society and even having that position says to those women here is somebody who has attained this position and I can do so within a traditional context so that's important okay finally Miss Briggs before you go I was listening so intently let me say this when I was growing up and quite honestly you can't talk to someone like me without me having to refer back to when I was growing up I think I'm not exacerbated at this point in my life by what is available to our children and grandchildren at such a young age because one I'm in tune with it and then second because I have had a background from where I grew up where these exposures were not there and therefore could not have been detrimental now having said that when you are also growing up before you even get to go to school the major role makers or the people you look up to are your parents are the community are the society within your immediate surrounding or environment and so you pick up from there solid solid behaviour solid way of thinking of responsibility towards society even and your role within society now we lack that today and so we need to be able for our leaders that or people that are aspiring to take up a leadership role and even people like me who can connect the past and today the present and even the future because of our past background have a lot of role to play and making sure that what seems to be missing today the responsibility growing at a young age of what and who you become in the future is so wrapped around what you have seen and you look at what's happening you mentioned it okay look at TikTok which was just something that came up just before the pandemic came and because of the time that TikTok came you could see a lot of things I was horrified there is no reason why we cannot use TikTok to drive the process of political process without our young ladies or our young men dragging their trousers all the way down to their pie our young women twacking or whatever it is called so it's not what is available it's how you use it and the content create with what is available well ladies of watching Italy Time is not our friend I want to say thank you to Ankil Briggs a human rights activist and Obonga Manbaba James a women's rights activist thank you so much ladies we're hoping that one way or the other we will be able to catch our young girls catch them young thank you so much for being part of the conversation thank you so much happy women's day everyone happy women's day well thank you all for staying with us as we round off the show today we're looking at Nigerians as they give their take on the bias that women experience everywhere and that's on street views well I'm Mary Anna Cohn I'll see you tomorrow on Plus Politics as we talk for development and in this society that we are now everybody has their own rights to do what they want it's good for everybody to have their own right like if you feel like going to school to have your own satisfaction it's okay by you it's not by force that that's you don't have any rights to go to school all these days international women's day international fathers day international whatever day how does it reflect into our life in Nigeria there can never be equality anywhere not even in the western world but however haven't said that we appreciate our mothers our sisters gender equality in political representative in Nigeria forget it I feel like they're supposed to be the same as men because nowadays because of the way our great grandfather did and said that they're supposed to be in the kitchen and because of that some people they didn't even send their women to school even me because I'm here because of what my dad did it's women's rights they have rights to say they want to go to school because I didn't go to school because my dad said I'm a lady that I can't do anything the only thing that they have to do is for me to get married and go to my husband's house because they think that it's only the men that are useful so I don't feel that way I feel we are equal as a woman I think a woman should especially in a country where doesn't give out the space it's the same as says that if you train a girl child you train a nation so that shows that a lot can be done when we train a girl child a lot can be achieved when women go further in life and we can see it in the case of we can see it in the case of we can see it in the case of we can see it in the case of our sister Koshuola so we can see that great potentials in women and if we can help them maximise it we just need a country that can that can encourage them