Mrs Cordelia Akpeke was on the phone talking to a client while giving out instructions to her staff, telling him what colour and quantity of chair cover to pick from the warehouse. It was a busy weekend for her and she made the perfect picture of multitasking.
Life had not always been like this for the HND graduate of Accounting and a mother of three from Delta state. She stopped working after she got married to her husband who told her she did not have to work and that it was his job to take care of the family. Cordelia had suggested doing business to her husband and he agreed to provide her with capital to start the business.
She recounted. ‘I got two job offers after one year but my husband told me not to accept any of them. So I suggested a business which he accepted and said he will provide capital for me.’
However, one year after the fact, promised capital was not forthcoming. So she started selling recharge cards under an umbrella in front of her house. ‘My husband would frown always, saying I am disgracing him as this is not the kind of business his wife should do.’
When she decided to set up a shop, it took the persuasion of friends for her husband to agree to support, and again the support never came. Her husband said she had disobeyed him by attempting to set up a store.
‘My husband stepped into the shop for the first time two years after I started and was shocked with what he saw,’ Cordelia said. ‘He accused me of taking a loan without his consent. But I just told him I reinvested my profit into the business which got me the few pieces of equipment he was seeing’.
Although Mr. Akpeke finally got over his bias of “his woman working”, he did not live long enough to provide her the necessary support as he died within the year. Mrs Akpeke said with tears in her eyes.
Cordelia Akpeke’s tenacity and refusal to stay in a box paid off as she was now left with the responsibility of taking care of the three kids and herself. Through challenges, business downturns, she never gave up, and gradually, Cordvic Cakes & Events that started with a capital of N20,000 is now estimated at N23 million, with three offices and two warehouses.
Cordelia Akpeke is not alone, as stories abound of women who have risen above all kinds of adversity and bias to forge a better future for themselves.
Though the stories are different and experiences varied, women in Nigeria have continued to rise above the many hurdles gender inequality places before them.
Today, there are about 23 million female entrepreneurs who have stood up to the challenge and made a difference in Nigeria. They control at least 41% of micro-businesses in the country and contribute significantly to the country’s GDP.
Not all of them make the news or trend on social media, but their contributions are nonetheless valid; normal women doing extraordinary things.
Where are these women?
In Agriculture
The agricultural sector in the country is sustained by women. In 2014 it was reported by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development that women make up 75 percent of the farm labour. They are involved in every process, from cultivation to weeding and harvesting.
They contribute to the agricultural value chain, from on-farm processing to the selling of farm produce. Women are major players in the aggregation and distribution of agricultural goods, and also take an active part in processing and logistics.
All of the above is despite having very limited access to land with just 14% of women smallholder farmers holding rights on land where they farm; they also benefit the least from credit facilities, farm input training and advice, technology, and crop insurance among other things. Most government agricultural interventions are hardly designed to provide support to them.
Recent research indicated an increase in financial inclusion gender gap among smallholder farmers and how failure to bridge this gap has wide-reaching implications for the Agricultural sector’s ability to reach its full potential.
Closing the financial inclusion gender gap in agriculture could reposition the country to achieve SDG 2 and 5.
The Educational System Relies on Them
The educational sector remains the engine room for human capital development. The elementary level of education is the most crucial part as it represents where knowledge is built. At this stage, not only foundational knowledge is being built, but it also integrates the child into society. Women are proven champions of this stage, building future leaders.
Gloria Okekeni of Alvin International School Makurdi stated that out of 18 teaching staff in the school, 14 of them are women.
Tosin Eyilorunpe, a teacher with Granny Murray School in Abuja said that women make up 70% of the teaching staff in the school.
Precious Ajifa, a teacher in Abuja, reported that 12 out of the 15 teachers in the school she teaches at are female. She said that ‘it’s like this in every nursery and primary school in Nigeria. The number picks up in secondary schools. But generally, there are more female teachers than male teachers females in Nigeria.’
Their assertion is backed up with official data as 11 out of every 20 registered teachers in primary school are women.
From 2015 to 2019, as the number of registered teachers increased, women outnumbered men, making up over 56% of total registered teachers in the years.
In 2015, out of 895,470 registered teachers, 508,574 were female, making 56.79%. The percentage of female to male teachers remained the same despite the increase in the total number of registered teachers up to 2017. Thereafter, it dropped a little but still above the 56% proportion.
There are still more female teachers in secondary schools although the numbers are lower compared to primary schools.
It is important to note though that the percentage of women to men teachers drops as educational level increases. There are more male lecturers in tertiary institutions in Nigeria than there are females across all disciplines. In the sciences for instance, there are 343 women to 2008 men.
This reduction in female representation at the tertiary level of education is likely connected to the fact that formal employment favours men over women and the entry barriers into the labour market are harder for women than men, especially at the higher levels. A PwC report notes that women’s representation reduces as the corporate ladder goes up with fewer women in senior leadership and on boards.
It has been reported that the conscious inclusion of women in the workforce will increase the country’s GDP by 23%.
In Top Government Offices
Women account for less than 30% representation in the political space across the three tiers of government from national to sub-national. Nigeria has never had a woman as the Governor of CBN, President National Industrial Court, or Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court, neither has any female been an elected governor save for Dame Virginia Ngozi Etiaba who only became a governor when the governor was impeached and her rule lasted only 3 months. A female president is a wish upon a star when there are only clouds,
Despite this women, when given the chance, have been exemplary in leadership.
Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and the Late Dr Dora Akunyili are only two examples of the worthy representation of many female leaders, a class that includes Amina J. Mohammed, Oby Ezekwesili to mention only a few of a long honour roll.
The economic reforms spearheaded by Dr Okonjo-Iweala as the Finance Minister led to the country reaping tremendously. The Paris Club wrote off over 60% of the debt owed by the country while she was the minister. Furthermore, she ensured that the details of the monthly disbursement from the federation account was made public. This led to the monthly publication of the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) statement.
She has since taken on bigger responsibilities on the larger world stage as the Director-General of the World Trade Organisation.
Late Dr Dora Akunyili remains a force to be reckoned with as she is credited with ending the menace of fake drugs in the country. The former Director-General of the National Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) faced off with what had become a criminal conspiracy to stop the circulation of fake drugs in the country.
No doubt, these women stood their ground in an unequal society to achieve feats that have continued to resonate even today.
In Boardrooms, In Tech; Everywhere
Women hold 20% of executive positions in Nigerian organisations.
Nowhere near enough but these women are making their marks on history and paving the way for younger women and showing that it is possible to break through the glass ceiling and break the bias while doing so.
Although female representation in Tech is still low, several women are high flyers in the industry, living out the possibility that glass ceilings can be broken.
Everywhere we look, women are doing exemplary things, finding innovative solutions to problems of inequality. From the many women impacted by insecurity and becoming breadwinners of large families to women going against the run of play, defying gravity to rise above every limitation in small towns and villages all across the country.
As the country celebrates International Women’s Day on the 8th of March, it is imperative that women’s contributions are recognised and systems that close the wide gender gap across all sectors are put in place. Because sustainable development is as close only as gender equality is achieved, according to UN Women it is “integral to all dimensions of inclusive and sustainable development”.
