As the world celebrated women gleefully on World International Women's Day, Nigeria's Federal Ministry of Women Affairs added to the frustration of Nigerian women by abandoning them at an event to celebrate them.
After inviting women from all cadres to mark this year’s IWD, the ministry failed to secure a reasonable venue for the invited women. Some had to sit in the corridors of the smallest hall of the Women Development Centre in Central Business District, Abuja, on Friday. This was because of the late attempts to book the center’s largest hall, the Maryam Abacha Hall, which was rented by the Trade Union Congress for another conference. This left the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs to settle for the small hall which could only contain a small number of attendees.
In addition to being confined to the smallest hall and its corridors, the women could barely breathe due to constant power outages that marred the event, embarrassing the minister who had to deal with four blackouts during her speech. The invited women from all spheres were left unattended, with neither water nor any edible. The attendees included secondary school students, National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members, military and para-military officers, women in NGOs, and representatives of religious organizations who came from different parts of the country. The frustration was palpable as they departed for their different locations. “Why will somebody bring women to this kind of hall? I have never seen this kind of thing in my life!” an angry woman exclaimed.
In her speech, the minister of women affairs, Barrister Uju Kennedy Ohanenye, blamed the poor socioeconomic advancement of Nigerian women on “a bunch of people” without being specific. She urged women not to keep quiet when things go wrong. “Even people that are corrupt, if you expose what they are doing, they won't want to do it again. So, let’s start exposing things,” She urged the women. “If I do wrong, expose me. If another person does wrong, expose it. If another person wants to corner what belongs to women, expose it,” she continued.
March 8 is the date set aside by the United Nations as International Women's Day.
