Aishatu Madawaki

“I am more concerned about the orientation of the family, especially for the girl child. I was also married quite early, but my parents knew the value of education, and it didn’t deter me from furthering it,” she said. “Marginalization of women in any form should be eradicated from the human space.”

“I saw the area to be an interesting field, most especially as a woman, and as a mother. I thought the course would be useful to me, my children, and the community itself. Psychology is all about the study of human behaviour, the how, what and, when. By the time you meet with people, and you are able to draw insights from observing them, then half of the problem is solved.”

“I will call on parents to really take the girl-child issues more serious, I will call on the government to also address the issue of girl-child education more seriously and I will call on the opinion leaders and the policy makers to really come up with policies that would really favour girl-child education. I pray that God Almighty Allah will widen the scope, open up our eyes, give us more knowledge, and more focus, more determination to see that the girl-child is really educated.”

“I will use this opportunity to call on the parents to please look at the female children as they are looking after their male children, let them educate female children as they are educating male children, and they shouldn’t have the impression that females have lower intelligence level, because in some areas girls are even more intelligent than boys, and research has proved that.”

“For parents generally, I will urge them to treat all their children equally because all human beings are equal before the Creator. There is no inferior or superior sex, we all have our weaknesses and we all have our strengths. And if you look at it critically I am happy that when you go out and begin to talk with people you would begin to hear women are more affectionate, compassionate, more understanding, they are more intelligent and parents are now beginning to appreciate their female children more than even the male children and that is good.”

“First and formost, I am an advocate of girl-child education because I have seen the benefits, and I have been a role model to many young girls. I will call on the women in the state, the region and country in general to really be focused, to be determined to achieve the best in any condition and environment they found themselves.”

“Well, there are so many challenges, both internal and outside your home. As a wife and mother there are internal challenges and many other issues to contend with; you go to the external places it is the same thing.”

“We have been hearing our elders, our imams and malams preaching the gospel of truth, saying that it is not the religion of Islam that discourages participation of women in the pursuit of knowledge, because it is categorically stated that acquisition of knowledge is mandatory to every male and female child, so it is not religious, it is not, it is not Islam. If your religion has given you power, opportunity, and the go-ahead to seek knowledge where ever you can get it, then what is limiting you? The only problem is attitudinal and that we have to address and change.”

“In addition, going by the free education policy, the only problem is that, how free is the free, when you find little charges?”

“We would be able to add something that would add value to their lives, so we need to have serious programmes that would really empower women in Nigeria, most especially in the north.”

“What is expected doesn’t stop at just enrollment. We may have very high enrollment figures but in the area of monitoring and supervision, you find so many things falling apart. For instance, if you enroll a hundred girls this year, by the time you get to the second year, if there is no proper monitoring, you hardly get fifty girls.So what are we saying? What we need is not high enrollment figure but high retention figure, high completion figure and after completion, what next?”

“Although the situation has improved and is improving, I am not really impressed, because you have more of talking than action as people tend to talk too much but little is done. You hear so many things about girl-child education, but if you go round actually what people are saying, this is not exactly what is happening. Like I said, there is improvement but we need to do more than what we are doing.”

“The only thing is to give women the opportunity to do that, we lack this and, also the Nigerian factor of picking people in some areas based on interest is really what is killing the situation. If we go by merit we have so many intelligent and determined women who are focused and can deliver any time.”

“From there we continued that same exercises of HIV/AIDS, and I was again asked to consult and look at the issue of people living with HIV/AIDS in Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara states and I did and we submitted the result. On the basis of our findings, so many other strategies were adopted to really address the issue of HIV/AIDS in Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara states.”

“The whole issue of HIV/AIDS was new and it was myself and one Hajara who started creating awareness about it then. We achieved that by going round schools, prison yards and some ministries, to do advocacy and sensitisation exercises and later, we embarked on some training programmes and thereby got some funding from some organisations to work more.”

“I was part and parcel of the formation of some of the NGOs and also a member of for instance, the Federation of Muslim Women”

“I was a consultant to UNICEF at a point, to USAID and other international agencies and that was how even the state government got to know me, and got convinced of my ability to really deliver and I was invited to really participate in running the state affairs.”

“You know it was as a result of my participation with non-governmental organisations (NGO) in the state, that actually brought me out and that was how I even got the recognition of some of the international agencies. That was how government and some international agencies got to know about me and really involved me in their activities.”

“My parents are enlightened and educated, so in my family right from the first to the last child, we are all exposed to this issue of western life and Islamic education. My father had said if it means spending his last penny he would educate my siblings and I on both western and Islamic education, and he really did keet his promise before he died. So I have all the encouragement from my late father to my husband, friends, brothers and sisters.”

“Women should be given more space to exercise their rights in the country.”