INTERROGATING WOMEN’S GRASSROOTS EMPOWERMENT PROGRAM

IN NIGERIA: A CASE STUDY OF OGOTUN MAT WEAVING CENTER

IN OGOTUN-EKITI, NIGERIA

By

EMMANUEL OLORUNFEMI JAIYEOLA

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of

the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY

Department of Teaching and Learning

MAY 2020

© Copyright by EMMANUEL OLORUNFEMI JAIYEOLA, 2020

All Rights Reserved

© Copyright by EMMANUEL OLORUNFEMI JAIYEOLA, 2020

All Rights Reserved

ii

To the Faculty of Washington State University:

The members of the Committee appointed to examine the dissertation of EMMANUEL

OLORUNFEMI JAIYEOLA find it satisfactory and recommend that it be accepted.

Pamela J. Bettis, Ph.D., Chair

Paula Groves Price, Ph.D.

Olusola Adesope, Ph.D.

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I wish to appreciate the good efforts of all my faculties in Cultural Studies program who

by their quintessential hard work and dedication have made a great impact on my learning to

attain this level of academic. The exposures and criticality in this program are worth

commending. The members of my committee are super great to harness all the potentials and

knowledge I have acquired over the years and professionally guide me to cumulate it into a very

qualitative and progressive scholar in me. I salute their courage to say it as it is to make me come

out a proud researcher. I deeply appreciate Drs. Olusola Adesope, Paula Groves Price and my

chair Pamela Jean Bettis. I cannot forget how it all started. I thank Dr. Jane Kelly who led a team

(Pam and Sola) to Nigeria for research in 2014 where I was found and admitted to undergo this

training. Thanks to Paula who sponsored me for three years. Thanks to Karen Weathermon,

Cindy Williams and Alicia Peterson, they all gave me good support while I worked with them.

Also, Kelly McGovern for all her advice and help and Julie Killinger. My appreciation goes to

my spiritual families in Pullman, England, Canada and Nigeria. My friends: Ademuyiwas,

Olagookuns,Olaleyes,Hunsus, Agbedes, too numerous to mention. I thank my hosts in Nigeria

during my data collection days, Aladegbolas, Asokejis, Oyetunjis, Yesufus, and others. My

siblings and their families, my spiritual parents, Rev Rachel Fakorede, Professor Kayode Oje,

Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Bayo Adeniran. I thank my children for all the moral, financial and spiritual

support, many times they wait all nights until I return home and sometimes, they help on the

several parts of my research. Ayomikun, Busayo, Mayowa, Tolu, Enoch and Josh. My sincere

appreciation and gratitude to my only LOVE, Maria, she was the support I had, to make it

through, she did all the hard parts while I just run the show. Topmost of all is to God who only

does great things. TO HIM BE THE GLORY FOR GREAT THINGS HE HATH DONE.

iv

INTERROGATING WOMEN’S GRASSROOTS EMPOWERMENT PROGRAM

IN NIGERIA: A CASE STUDY OF OGOTUN MAT WEAVING CENTER

IN OGOTUN-EKITI, NIGERIA

Abstract

by Emmanuel Olorunfemi Jaiyeola, Ph.D.

Washington State University

May 2020

Chair: Pamela J. Bettis

Women’s empowerment programs in Africa are mostly sponsored by international organizations

and development agencies. However, there has been little, or no success recorded from such

programs. African rural women remain poor, oppressed, marginalized and entrenched in gender

inequality. This qualitative case study interrogates a grassroots women’s empowerment program

in rural Nigeria. The researcher conducted twenty interviews, four focus groups and multiple

observations to answer the overarching research question: What are the understandings and

experiences of rural Nigerian women about empowerment? Findings include women’s

understandings of empowerment as money to care for and educate their children; a complex

dynamic between national, regional and local government support or lack of support for

women’s empowerment programs; a patriarchal culture that limited women’s voice and choice in

the empowerment programs. Recommendations focus on including the voice and choice of

women in the design of rural grassroots empowerment programs for their sustainability. The

v

researcher also found that these women were resilient in the face of gender injustice and had

created their own small empowerment program.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ACKNOWLEDGMENT................................................................................................................ iii

ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... iv

LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................ vii

CHAPTER

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................................1

Research problem Statement......................................................................................................2

Research Questions ....................................................................................................................3

Significance of Study .................................................................................................................3

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................10

CHAPTER THREE: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ...............................................................44

CHAPTER FOUR: METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................63

A Demographic Overview and Historical Account of Ekiti State ...........................................66

Research Process ......................................................................................................................75

Data Analysis Procedure ..........................................................................................................79

CHAPTER FIVE: FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS ........................................................................86

CHAPTER SIX: DISCUSSION ON FINDINGS, RECOMMENDATION AND IMPLICATION

......................................................................................................................................................137

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................151

APPENDIX

INTERVIEW PROTOCOLS .......................................................................................................163

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LIST OF TABLES

Page

1. Table 1: Membership of University Governance Structure (North- West Zone

Universities, Nigeria, between 2009-2013)………………………………………... …...iii

viii

Dedication

To God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

To my dearest mother, wife, daughters, sisters and women faculties,

supervisors, colleagues who has been part of this journey.

To the women in Ogotun Ekiti who participated in this study.

1

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

Background:

According to World Bank poverty data, 53% of women in Nigeria live below the global

poverty line of $1.90 per day (World Bank, 2018). This troubling statistic demands deliberate

action to ameliorate the condition of women. Indeed, efforts geared toward addressing this issue

have led to various national, including the Nigerian government, and international organizations

to create various women’s empowerment programs. However, women’s empowerment programs

in Nigeria and Africa are mostly sponsored by international organizations and development

agencies. The inability of these sponsors and their programs to achieve their goals is possibly a

result of cultural barriers since western ideological understandings of women’s empowerment

often permeates the design of these programs (Akpan, 2015) and is often at variance with local

and cultural understandings of women’s empowerment. Furthermore, what empowerment means

to African women and girls of different ages, status, ethnicities, locations, cultural and spiritual

beliefs varies greatly and makes achieving empowerment goals that are undergirded by Western

ideologies problematic. Many of these empowerment programs are created without the voices

and choices of Nigerian women (Akpan, 2015). Indeed, Rowlands (1997) argues that feminist

understandings of empowerment are about the dynamics of oppression (Rowland, 1997).

Therefore, scholars and researchers of grassroots women’s empowerment, (Batliwala 1993,

Cornwall 2016, Kabber 1994), argue that empowerment must lead affected people to see

themselves as having the ability and entitlement to make decisions that may bring personal

transformation (Cornwall, 2016). Therefore, grassroots empowerment principles aimed at

involving women at their community levels, and using a bottom -up approach, where women’s

voices and choices are heard is considered appropriate for solving Nigerian women’s diverse and

2

peculiar issues (USAID, 2017). To this end, this research examines Ogotun Mat Weaving and

skill Acquisitions Center, in Ogotun-Ekiti, a Nigerian grassroots empowerment program that is

indigenously conceived and culturally congruent with the participation of its users.

The research was conducted in Ekiti state in south western Nigeria, where there are more

empowerment programs for women in rural areas. This location serves as a case study, and in-

depth interviews, observations and focus group discussions were used to collect data. The goal

was to have rich contextual data to understand the experiences of the participants involved in

grassroots empowerment programs that offer women choice and voice (Merriam & Tisdell,

2015). This geographical area is chosen because of the indigenously conceived empowerment

program in the area and also because the researcher has cultural understandings of the area and

understands the language and culture of the people.

Research Problem Statement:

The few studies on women’s grassroots empowerment program in Nigeria reveal that

they mostly provide education, vocational skills or sometimes resources like funds, equipment

to facilitate poverty alleviation, health and human rights awareness, and sanitary materials to

keep girls in school (Adu,2013, Ejumudo, 2013; Fatile,et al, 2017;Ovute,et al,2015; Zaid &

Popoola, 2010). All these are done either at a large scale or at the grassroots level as a means to

overcome the many socio-economic challenges confronting Nigerian women. Many international

and national organizations, different tiers of government and entrepreneurs have contributed to

these programs. Copious academic works have discussed the efficacy of these programs for

women’s economic development and ultimately how it affects national development of Nigeria

and Africa (Adu, 2013, Akpan, 2015; Ejumudo, 2013; Fatile,et al, 2017;Ovute,et al,2015; Zaid &

Popoola, 2010). However, the gap this research is addressing is the lack of the voices and

3

choices of women participants who take part in these grassroots empowerment programs. A

study of a rural Nigerian women’s empowerment program will provide researchers and activists

deeper understanding of how rural grassroots empowerment programs operate and what the

participants’ experiences and understandings of such a program are. The study seeks to answer

the following research questions.

Research Questions:

• What are the understandings and experiences of participants of grassroots empowerment

programs in southwestern Nigeria?

• What roles do government, leadership, organizational structure and policy play in the

operations of grassroots empowerment programs in southwestern Nigeria in giving voice

and choice to participants?

• What roles do community, culture and local government play in the experiences and

understandings of participants of grassroots empowerment programs?

Significance of this Study:

This research identifies gaps in research and practice on the exclusion of women’s

voice and choice in the design and operation of grassroots empowerment programs. Therefore,

this study aims to contribute to knowledge by critically focusing on the dynamics of women’s

complex positions to express their choice of empowerment activities towards making positive

impacts on their own lives and family for social transformation.

Theoretical Framework:

African feminist theory is multidimensional because it draws on many different

perspectives of African feminist researchers, scholars and activists such as Acholonu, Ogunyemi,

Oyeronke, Adu, Gbowee, Wangari Maathai, Adichie and ongoing discourse within and outside

4

the continent, including scholars who are not Africans (Freedman 2001). African feminists are as

diverse in their views as the continent is, but they agree about what feminist theory does and

should achieve in terms of feminism both as movement and in academic life (Atanga, 2013;

Nnameka, 2004). The dominant theme of African feminist theory is the same as other feminists’

theories around the globe, which identified women as an oppressed group that needs liberation,

and an end to their exploitation (hooks, 2000; Whyte, 2016).

However, the dominant discourse in African literatures and current research reveals that

African feminism is broadly divided along intellectual and popular categories (Atanga, 2013;

Sachikonye, 2010). From these two categories, the popular feminist category is the brainchild of

feminists’ scholars who make African cultures and traditions the center of their arguments, and

criticize western feminist ideologies (Sachikonye, 2010). Their claim is that African identity is

embedded in the culture; hence, they would not want to follow the path of the intellectual

feminism categories which they tagged as having a western influence (Atanga, 2012). Popular

feminists believe in traditional gender roles which include beliefs that men should be the

breadwinner, while it is the role of women to cook meals and bear and care for children

(Knowles, 2012). The position of popular feminists has continued to socially, mentally and

economically impoverish women in rural areas and others in urban areas who stay within the

beliefs and practices of culture and traditions. On the other hand, the intellectual feminists are the

pragmatic African feminists who are trying to redefine women’s role to make women more

relevant in the social, political and economic systems (Sachikonye, 2010). They advocate for an

active voice for women against gender hierarchy and the ancillary status of women. The

intellectual feminist category rejects the culturally based practices affecting women such as

female genital mutilations, girls’ and women’s early marriages, lack of education, and the

5

traditional gender roles. They embrace the abolition of these kind of cultural practices, by

approaching African women’s issues in a more pragmatic way, asking for women’s rights and

changes in policies to give women voice. This group also engaged more in academic theories and

activities to place African feminism within contemporary scholarship (Sachikonye, 2010) As the

researcher, I have considered many strands of Africa feminism, and have concluded that

STIWANISM in the intellectual African feminism category, best creates and provides the

theoretical framework to see and analyze the gender inequality embedded in many traditional

roles and social constructs of gender roles in Africa and to understand women’s role in

empowerment programs in Nigeria.

Stiwanism as Theoretical Framework:

STIWANISM means Social Transformation Including Woman in Africa (STIWA), and

for proper alignment with the common terminology is called STIWANIsm. It was founded by

Molara Ogundipe-Leslie, an African feminist, gender justice and social transformation activist in

Africa since 1994 (Leslie, 1994). Stiwanism is about inclusive social transformation of Africa

where African women play significant roles by partnering with men in this transformation

agenda. The main argument of this strand of feminism is to educate and empower women to

jettison the traditional subordinate roles assigned by the society. This strand aims at making

women to be more active participants in social transformation and reformation. While this is a

departure from the ideology of popular African feminists which is entrenched in African

traditions that reinforce patriarchy (Akali, et al, 2013), Stiwanism critiques the ideology of the

supremacy of men and inferiority of women. Ogundipe disrupts the normal discourse and

practice of ‘man power’ that excludes women’s ability and potential. She argues for inclusion of

women in social and community building.

6

This strand of African feminism agrees with Adichie, Ayesa, Joda and Cassey’s positions

to have a reformed African feminism that meets the twenty first century ideologies needed to

rebuild the nation and confront global challenges. Therefore, STIWANISM as a theoretical

framework gives this study the suitable lens for the analysis of the menace of gender inequality

in Africa entrenched by culture and traditions. Finally, its scholarly approach to challenge rising

global oppressions and marginalization facing women in Africa will be very significant to the

development of scholarly literature on contemporary African feminism theory (Atanga, 2013).

More so STIWANISM fits with the critical scholarship of disrupting the traditional status quo by

advocating for women’s choice and voice in their empowerment programs.

Methodology: Case Study as the Research Design

The methodology employed for this research study is qualitative and uses the case study

as the research design. My choice of case study research design for this research study depends

on many factors; first, the nature of the inquiry, the settings, the research questions and the

methods of data collection that I intend to use are all characteristics of qualitative research study

and more depth of information would be available from a case study (Savin-Baden and Major,

2013) One of the purposes of this study is to understand the meanings these rural women have

about the concept of empowerment programs; thus, there is a need for the researcher to hear their

voices. The study seeks to know who makes the choice of empowerment and how that process

operates? Critical scholars seek how power operates in such programs and who benefits from the

programs? Therefore, the research study used case study design to seek answers to these

questions.

7

Research Procedures:

A case study is a way to conduct a study on a program, event, activity, group, or

individual, and it may be bound by time, location, activity as this relates to the research question

(Merriam, 1988). Therefore, the context set for this study is the Ogotun Mat weaving center, at

Ogotun Ekiti in Ekiti state, Nigeria south west, in Africa. The participants include the women

who used the center and other stake holders, the local government officials, and some men in the

community. This keeps the study as a unit, focused with a detailed account of the participants of

grassroots empowerment programs in Nigeria (Gerring, 2013; Savin-Baden & Major, 2013).

The research study examines the understandings, meanings, and the experiences of the

women in this rural setting within the patriarchal society of Nigeria. This aligns with all the

characteristics of qualitative research approaches that emphasize experience, understanding, and

making meaning (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015) from the participants’ perspective. There are

multiple data collection techniques used in this case study. The use of multiple data collection

techniques makes case study more rigorous and allows data triangulation for trustworthiness of

the findings.

Data Collection:

There were twenty participants interviewed in about seven days of visiting two main

local towns and communities, which are: Ogotun where the rural women host their

empowerment program, and Ilawe where the local government office is located and in addition,

another remote town Orin Ekiti. There were multiple participants-observations, some documents

and artifacts about a cooperative society and four focus group discussions: two with the staff of

the community department in local government office and two with the rural women at Ogotun.

8

The interviews and focus group responses were audio-recorded in the Yoruba language

while some in the local government offices responded in the English language. The presence of

the researcher to collect data as the human instrument is an added advantage. I was able to read

and gather more information through participants’ nonverbal communications (Merriam

&Tisdell, 2015).

Data Analysis Procedure:

This is a process where meaningful patterns and themes emerged, through the process of

thorough examination, comparison, contrasting and interpreting the data collected (Miles et al,

2014). Making meaningful patterns and themes is done consciously using the research questions.

The foremost steps in the data reduction process were first transcribing data from interviews.

Since more than half of my participants spoke in Yoruba, the next step was to translate the

transcripts into English Language. This was followed by weeks of coding to get categories and

subcategories during the summer of 2019. I had many sessions of brain storming and writing

coding and recoding, listening to tapes and rereading the transcripts marking the data with

different colors. I enjoyed the support of my friends, family and my advisor at this daunting time.

At the initial stage there were fourteen themes which I considered large but by using a deductive

analysis approach before the analysis, it helped reduce to a more focused categories and

subcategories until four themes then later collapsed to three themes emerged.

I kept an analytic memo that contained a first-hand self-report about the journey,

conducting the research, and especially throughout the data collection and analysis process. I

have included substantial parts of the memo and it has also helped to piece together many data

that cut across many concepts and topics coming up in the findings.

9

Overview of the Chapters:

There are six chapters in this dissertation., The next chapter reviews relevant literature

and analyzes scholarly discourse on African gender issues, the vestiges of colonization as it

reinforces patriarchy in Nigeria society. It discusses the grassroots empowerment programs and

their viability within the patriarchy culture. Chapter three talks about the theory and theorists of

African feminism. I examine the multidimensional views of African feminists with different

strands divided into two categories, the intellectual and popular categories. The chapter

highlights Stiwanism, a strand of intellectual feminism as the theory used in this study. Chapter

four is the methodology section that discusses the qualitative case study design that uncovers the

understandings and the experiences of women and men in the rural areas of Ogotun Ekiti, and

the role of government, traditions and community about empowerment programs. The fifth

chapter is the analysis of the data and uses quotes from the participants and my fieldnotes to

make the argument for my analysis. The concluding chapter is the discussion, implications and

recommendations of the study.

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CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

“Promote gender equality and women empowerment” (UN,2013). This United Nation’s

proclamation necessitates a critical analysis of why we are talking about women’s

empowerment. This is because gender inequality is a global issue (Leon-Guerrero, 2009), and

promoting women’s empowerment seems the way gender equality must be ultimately eliminated

(Wotipka & Ramirez, 2007). Earlier, before the above proclamation, the United Nations (UN)

Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Declaration of 2000 set the target to totally eradicate

gender inequality globally by 2015, a goal that was not achieved, and a new date is now set for

2030 (UN, 2015). The question now is whether this new date will also be feasible for total

eradication of gender inequality, considering some salient socio political, cultural and economic

issues that are persistent features in all societies. In Nigeria, there are numerous efforts and

substantial resources committed to empowerment initiatives as the eradication strategy, which is

commendable, but it seems the responses to eradication are little (HDR, 1999; ADB, 2007), and

the number of women in poverty is still alarming. A recent World Bank record shows 53%

women live below the poverty line in Nigeria (World Bank, 2018). This could be traced to

entrenched patriarchal social structure in Africa societies.

Consequent upon this desire for total eradication of gender inequality, the World

Economic Forum (WEF) introduced the Global Gender Gap Index in 2006 as a framework to

discover the extent of gender-based disparity and track the progress made over a specific time

period globally. For example, in 2017, 144 countries were measured across the following

indices: economic participation and opportunity; educational attainment; health; and political

empowerment. The report shows that Nigeria ranked 122 in aggregate across these

measurements (WEF, 2017). With this report, Nigeria is judged as a country with a high level of

11

gender inequality. Women and men are not equally favored or offered equal opportunities in

access to resources and power. Concerned groups and agencies have continued to react to this

wide disparity. Such groups include International Non-Government Organizations (INGOs),

United Nations agencies for development and women’s empowerment, feminist movements and

theorists whose core mission is to bring equality to the society (Megkwe 2008; Marinucci, 2010).

African feminists among other interested groups continue to respond to this marginalization and

oppression of women in Africa through various means. However, to appreciate the responses of

these interest groups about gender inequality and promotion of women’s empowerment, this

chapter analyzed root causes and the persistency of gender inequality in the context of Africa and

Nigeria as case study and reviewed scholarly literature on empowerment strategies in Nigeria.

Gender Inequality in the African Context:

Defining the concept of gender inequality may seem unnecessary because it is a common

global phenomenon. However, it is observed that lack of a universal meaning of the concept

contributes to the perpetual existence of the menace everywhere (Adu, 2013). Gender inequality

has different meanings in different regions since it is a social construct (Adu, 2013; Hadebe,

2009). Therefore, in general, gender inequality will be contextually defined using cultural

interpretation and role the society assigns to women. Each society acquires their peculiar

knowledge based on the meaning constructed by the society (Barker 2012). Consequently, each

society holds its own meaning of the concept and phenomenon of gender inequality. Likewise,

response to gender inequality and the eradication process will be different from one society to

another due to this peculiar understanding and knowledge constructed.

Gender inequality in the African context is therefore defined as the space and role that

African patriarchal culture has assigned for women and girls in African society and the expected

12

behaviors which are imposed on them in their subordinate positions to men (O’ Connor, 2016).

Consequently, to analyze how Africans understand these social phenomena and construct the

concept of gender inequality, it will be appropriate to view gender relations through the lens of

African culture.

The assigned role of women in Africa is subordinate to the role of men. For instance,

under the traditional patrilineal system, which has influenced the present society, women are not

allowed to make decisions at home, because Africans mostly live in homesteads under the

authority of a male family head who makes all decisions (Adu, 2013). In an African homestead,

which usually comprises several households, each household is made up of the husband, wife (or

wives, as polygamy is allowed in Africa) and children. Several households constitute a lineage

and several joint lineages form a community, which makes up village or township; this is the

arrangement in the traditional social unit. The community, or the village, is ruled by a male

chosen from a lineage and supported by other elderly men from other lineages. From this type of

traditional setting, women do not occupy leadership positions in any level of the groups and are

not given any decision-making power or rights on matters concerning the homestead, family, or

the community. Sometimes women outnumber men in the community and townships, but the

men who are fewer in number will make decisions for women on and about everything including

how women should live their lives (HDR, 1999; ADB, 2007). This cultural practice that bars

women from decision making at home and at the community level also denies them choice and

voice in national matters. Again, in Nigeria, women don’t have reproductive rights because

culturally it is acceptable for men to decide the reproductive agenda of the family, to dictate how

many children to have and when to have them, without considering the interests of the woman

(Olawoye,et, al,2004). However, culturally, a majority of women have accepted that such

13

decisions are absolutely the right of men and they wait for that to happen. Women are disallowed

the use of contraceptives and any form of birth control or protection against sexual diseases in

case of multiple sexual partners due to polygamy or extramarital affairs (which men are allowed

to do but are disallowed for women in most places) (Smith, 2007).

So, in general, gender refers to the roles and behavior of men and women in daily social,

cultural, economic and political relationships (Adu, 2013). Thus, gender in an African context as

in other places is socio-culturally constructed and is the society’s positioning of biological

females and males into women and men, femininity and masculinity. Gender issues are not just

about women but are everyday societal issues which affect both men and women in their

endeavors (WHO, 2010; O’Connell, 2009; UNDP, 2009). Thus, gender relations in African

society have been molded by a combination of common daily factors which include customs,

cultural practices, education, social economic status, traditional and modern laws, patterns of

social organization, infiltrations of cultures and globalization. In the following section, an

analysis of the development, reinforcements and factors that have supported gender inequality in

Nigeria is given.

Background to Nigerian Gender Inequality:

In its 2014 report, the World Bank claimed that gender inequality gaps are gradually

closing globally. For example, in Nigeria in 2006, the percentage of women’s participation in

national economic activities such as government and private employment and entrepreneurships

was 56%, but when measured in 2014, that percentage had grown to 60%. Also, in Cameroon, a

neighboring country to Nigeria, it was recorded that in 1999 the elementary enrolment ratio was

85 girls to 100 boys, but in 2008 it had moved to 91 girls to 100 boys (WEF, 2014). Despite

these noticeable improvements, there are still many gaps left. In many parts of Africa, women

14

still suffer complications and death from childbirth and other reproductive health issues. The

World Bank reported that 1 out of every 31 women dies of maternal issues in Africa compared to

1 out of 4,300 in developed countries (World Bank, 2015). Moreover, in secondary education

enrolment, girls still lag behind boys. This is due to many factors, which include traditional

practices that prefer a boy child above a girl child, early and forced marriages for girls, and

domestic and sexual violence (Olawoye, et al, 2004). For instance, the abduction of over 250

Chibokk’s girls by Boko Haram in Nigeria in 2014 was a clear indication of prejudice against

female children (Okebukola, 2014) which consequently led to reduced enrolment of girls in

schools in Northern Nigeria. Additionally, women and girls are ‘subjects’ of the social

construction of inferiority to boys and men (Nealon & Giroux 2012, Leon-Guerrero, 2009) that

further placed them in an unequal status with men and boys. Patriarchy is manifested in every

area, whether in employment, or access to resources, or domestic and corporate roles,

constraining both women and girls in a marginalized lifestyle. Presently, women face challenges

of glass ceilings at workplaces, poor political representation, no reproductive, legal and

inheritance rights, and limited access to education (Olawoye, et al, 2004). In this chapter, I

discussed succinctly some early records of events about gender relations in Nigeria history.

Although the account does not depict the chronological events of the origin of political and

diplomatic struggles of Nigeria, it will show the evolution of the present gender position in

Nigeria. It begins with a pre-colonial history of Nigeria as a patriarchal society and how the

incursion of the British colonizer reinforced patriarchy and reinforced gender inequality. I will

also examine the role and the legacies of the colonizers on gender inequality. Since this study is

about women empowerment, I consider it necessary to analyze the efforts of international

organizations and agencies such as the United Nations, the Millennium Development Goals,

15

(MDGs), United States Agency for International Development, (USAID), UN Women, and the

many NGOs working towards African women’s empowerment as a means towards the

eradication of gender inequality in Nigeria. And closely wind it up by examining the roles and

challenges faced by grassroots empowerment programs towards gender equality in Nigeria.

Gender Relationship in Nigeria:

This section discusses the history of Nigerian gender inequality during the three eras of

pre-colonial, the colonial, and the post-colonial times. First, a brief background about Nigerian

demographics and national history is given.

Brief History and Demography of Nigeria:

Nigeria is populated by over 250 ethnic groups with three dominant ethnic groups and

two dominant religions. The dominant ethnic groups are the Hausas who are the most populous,

predominantly Islamic by religion, and occupy the Northern region. Then there are the Igbos

who occupy the Eastern region and the Yorubas who occupy the Western region. The Igbos and

Yorubas are both mostly Christians (Omadjohwoefe, 2013). The coming together of these three

dominant ethnic groups and other minor ethnic groups was a result of the 1914 amalgamation by

the British colonial imperialists for their administrative convenience as the colonizer. These three

main ethnic groups had previously constituted different kingdoms, caliphates, empires,

languages and cultures, with different names. However, the name Nigeria which came as unifier

for all these distinct nations, was the brainchild of Floral Shaw, the wife of Lord Lugard who

was the colonial administrator of Nigeria (Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2017). Presently, Nigeria

is made up of 36 states and a federal capital city. The estimated population in 2019 stood at over

200 million people, of which about 100 million are females and over 100 million are males

(NBS, 2019).

16

The Precolonial Gender Relationship in Nigeria:

In the pre-colonial era, Nigerians, like many other Africans in other African countries,

lived in communities in their traditional settings and gender roles. In these communities both

men and women worked together for the socio-economic and political development of their

families and the communities but in different roles as assigned by each community. There was

no term like “housewife” as it is commonly used now because both men and women participated

actively taking different roles as much as they could to complement each other (Ako- Nai, 2013).

The cultural ideology then is expressed in this common saying in Yoruba (A Nigeria native

language), bi okunrin ri ejo,ki obinrin pa, ki ejo ti ku ni, meaning literally that “If a man saw a

poisonous snake and a woman killed it, the important thing is that the snake was killed.” This

means then that domestic work or community services were not gendered; rather the important

thing was that the task was accomplished. However, this does not seem to be the same across

other ethnic groups, especially the Igbos culture, where masculinity is more expressed as it was

exemplified in Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart (Achebe, 1958). Although women were

not generally relegated to the background in the precolonial era, they were denied the honor and

respect given to men of same status or that performed the same task. For example, in the

precolonial era, Nigerian society had a good number of female leaders of empires and kingdoms,

as these were designated, and there were women who were warlords who exhibited great military

heroism. Some of the women who occupied such positions include Bakwa Turuku and her

daughter Queen Amina, who both fought wars. Amina founded the present city of Zaria in

present Kaduna state in northern Nigeria and started the famous traditional systems of building

walls around cities, which is common in northern Nigeria to this day (Udodinma 2013). Other

prominent women include Madam Tinubu of Lagos, Efunsetan Aniwura, princess Dauranna of

17

Bayayida, princess Inkpi of Igala, queen Kambasen of Ijaw, and queen Quari of Ilesha (Adu

2013). In the southwestern part of Nigeria where the Yorubas are settled, women were members

of town and village councils, which is where important decisions were made. There were

reserved political positions for women, e.g. Iyalode, a high-ranking chieftain in the community,

and Iyaloja (head of all market squares), among a host of other offices. Women who held these

two positions wielded much political power and influence that was on par with or greater than

men in some cases, in their communities. Women were appointed as regents (acting king) after

the demise of the ruler in the towns, while some were in effect kings, like Luwe, a female Oni,

title for the kings of Ile Ife. They were also spiritual leaders as they held the offices of chief

priests to some of the goddesses of the lands and rivers (Udodinma, 2013). Some of these

prominent community services and family roles were given according to hierarchy of age not by

biological sex because the roles were not absolutely seen as gendered (Udodinma, 2013). But in

all these, men were considered superior to women because men were mostly used as footmen

combatants because of their physical body structure. Patriarchal society disregards the

intellectual prowess of women and prefers to recognize men’s superior physical strength.

However, women participated in the strategic planning and execution of wars. According to

Yoruba history, Moremi Ajasoro, a queen of Ile Ife in the present Osun state in southwestern

Nigeria, bravely proved that a woman could win war through military tactics. She used her

beauty as a weapon of war and allowed herself to be captured and served as a slave to spy on

their tormentors thereby learning the secret of their power. She succeeded and escaped to her

homeland after learning the military secrets of Ile Ife’s enemies. She gave the secret to her

people and brought permanent victory to her people though she didn’t fight in the war (Harris,

2012). She was neither made the king nor the captain, but rather she remained one of the wives

18

of the king on her return. Women did not have full control or the same control as men in this era;

they were marginalized and oppressed but not in the same degree in the post-colonial era, as will

be discussed shortly. While women had limited voice, they nevertheless could be part of the

community with an active role in the community’s affairs, such as Efunsetan Aniwura, the

Iyalode of Ibadan and Tinubu, Iyalode of Egba (Aloko,2012). However, there were demarcations

and boundaries which women should not cross as designed by patriarchal domination. These

limitations became the practice that has defined gender relations in Nigerian society (Harris,

2012).

Colonial Incursion and its Effects on Gender Relationships in Nigeria:

The colonial incursion which came in 1884 brought many changes to Nigerian traditions

and practices in terms of religion, political arrangements, education, and gender relations

(Udodinma, 2013). The incursion of the British colonists had significant effect on existing power

relationships. It stripped women of the roles and power they had before the colonization. The

British colonists came with the practice of isolating white middle- and upper-class women from

socio-economic and political activities. This was shown by the women’s protest in the west for

suffrage and political representation (Fawcett, 2016). Likewise, the waves of feminism in the

United States of America and the founding of the feminist movement were a result of women’s

marginalization and male dominance in politics and economic activities (Udodinma, 2013). In

Nigeria and other African communities, women were removed from public and political domains

and confined solely to their homes. Men were given access to western education for ease of

communication and to assist with colonial administration; thus, men became clerks, teachers,

mission workers, cooks, and took other roles in the offices. This further established class

structures as men became the new working and lower middle class, but women were not allowed

19

to work (Adu 2013; Udodinma, 2013). This action further reduced the status of women because

men earned money from work while women could not work and had to rely on men for money.

Women thus began to carry the extra burden of colonization and inequality due to

marginalization and segregation.

Similarly, the colonists introduced trades into Nigeria suitable for their benefit that

further marginalized women. During the pre-colonial times, Nigerians were cash and food crop

farmers, and there was no segregation of farming duties; both were done either by women or

men according to individual abilities and access to resources, although more men did the cash

crop farming while women helped with this as well as growing food for the family. The British

colonizers did not allow women farming cash crops, such as cocoa, rubber, cotton, and coffee,

that were exports to England for industrialization. Women instead were left to do food crops to

feed the family and with less cash income because almost no one bought food then (Ako- Nai,

2013). In all these, women were placed into a lower rank than men. With this disruption of pre-

colonial Nigerian socio-economic and political systems, men were positioned for leadership roles

in politics and in the economy as well as in other social and religious circles. This

marginalization soon became a way of life in Nigeria and in Africa in general. Men were

becoming more dominant in every institution including the home (Adu 2013; Udodinma, 2013).

Most Nigerian daily activities such as religion, politics, business, recreation,

entertainment, economic, education and culture are male dominated. The culture presents males

as the most significant and dominant figure since policies and discourses are constructed around

masculinity. This further encourages men to dominate women psychologically, emotionally,

financially, and violently abuse them (hooks, 2004). Consequently, toughness, anger, rage

became acceptable social behaviors for men which shaped their lives to demonstrate dominating

20

power over women (Johnson 2005). This subsequently entrenches gender inequality in African

society.

Evolving Gender Relationships in Post-colonial Nigeria:

Colonization redesigned the cultural and religious structures that predate the colonial era

in Nigeria. It also left a legacy of different social classes rooted in masculinity that bred social

inequality. The Nigerian federal government is working to assuage this situation by embracing

global initiatives such as the Millennium Development goals (MDGs) and initiating policies that

seek to eliminate this inequality (UN,2006). Despite these efforts, however, girls and women

continue to be marginalized along different social fronts (Ajagun, 2013).

The British colonial rule in Nigeria ended in 1960 but not after the British passed

on their cultural practices to the communities they left, which too often have relinquished most

of their original culture. Furthermore, the amalgamation of the three protectorates of Niger, by

the colonizers for administrative convenience, was a major fracture to these ethnic groups which

are not socially, culturally and linguistically connected. Barker claims that language is culture;

the imposition of the English language upon Nigeria was a disruption to a host of existing

linguistic practices which brought a change in culture (Barker 2012). Through the teaching of

their language, the British colonizers also taught skills mostly to men, and thus the men gained

more power. These cultural transfers also influenced clothing, food, social interactions, and

enforced respect for educated men. Women began to feel inferior for not being able to participate

in the ‘new world’ setting. Through this new language and business skills many women could

not participate because of the skills barriers and segregation of trade classes. Moreover, the

Nigerian public service administrative structure was patterned after the colonizer’s civil service

systems, which are male dominated with few females holding public offices, thus creating a new

21

male elite structure. This led to more gaps within the social and working rank in society (Adu,

2013).

Upon the final exit of the British colonial officers and administrators from various

offices created during their regime, they left behind a class of Nigerian men who had been

educated and served them, who then assumed their offices. They relinquished low paid jobs to

women who by then had been attending schools, although not as much as men (Adu, 2013).

These are low paid jobs that do not require much formal education and have since been

stereotyped as women’s work. This unfortunate belief has permeated the school systems and led

to a segregation of subjects and roles in sports where girls can participate. Stereotyping has

become one of the tools for entrenching patriarchy and gender inequality.

Overview of Patriarchy in Nigeria:

bell hooks described patriarchy as a social menace and disease that is plaguing the life of

men both in their body and spirit. It is the dominant character exhibited by men using the socio-

political systems and institutions to maintain their supremacy above females and makes them

consider themselves weak to the point of being psychologically terrorized. It is simply a system

to exclude females (hooks, 2004). This is the description of the pattern of patriarchy that exists in

Nigeria and this oppressive situation has become the norm in the society, which some scholars

describe as a way of life. Moreover, traditional African women play significant roles to help

entrench man’s dominance, as is revealed in the popular African feminist scholars’ works that

are embedded in African traditions which are patriarchy-centered and oppressive for women

(Bvuktva, 2014).

Patriarchy in Nigeria is associated with authoritative, domineering masculinity,

characterized by social supremacy that is generally identified with men. It is a social,

22

psychological, political, and emotional weapon that makes women see themselves as a weak

object of subordination and fear, and victims of hard and high-handedness of men (Idowu, 2013).

Patriarchy is reproduced in Nigeria by teaching male children to understand and demonstrate that

they are in control while women should submit to the authority of men. They learn also to assert

authority by force, and violence is an acceptable behavior for men while women must remain

calm and submissive everywhere (Adichie, 2012; Idowu, 2013). Patriarchy is a social system

organized around some institutions in the society that are male dominated, male identified, male

cultured and they are used to demean women in their construction and exalt men and masculinity

(Johnson, 2005). Nigeria, after colonization, was purely built for men. The system was

redesigned for men’s domination. For instance, governance in Nigeria was militarized for more

than three decades by all male soldiers. The administration, economy, educational and public

institutions, and councils were so masculine that women could not work in most organizations

except in primary schools as teachers and few girls’ secondary schools. Even military personnel

were sent to some schools to militarize the children. This is what Johnson 2005 called “the face

of patriarchal culture that dictates how things ought to be” p.30. The patriarchal system has

labeled the men the breadwinner that women must depend on. The society has stereotyped men

to be in the army, security, or to building and other physically hard jobs. They are also

stereotyped in recreation and sports, as men traditionally play soccer, drink alcohol, visit the

bars, and drive cars around the streets. The women are culturally required to be stay at home

mothers and home care providers; they must not say no to sex from their partners at any time,

must be friendly and gentle, must not be firm and rigid. A woman must not show her sexual

desire and must always see men as superior (Adu,2013). In Nigerian patriarchal society, men

who demonstrate or show signs of weakness or not being aggressive are ridiculed for behaving

23

like a woman. Having socially constructed women in this manner, it is unacceptable to see a

woman being agile, exhibiting high physical strength and outstanding intellectual capabilities,

because patriarchy in Nigeria always regards women’s reasoning as non-constructive compared

to men’s (Adu, 2013; Johnson, 2005). Adichie, however, argued against this; women should

show their ambitions and display their skills and talents. The world is no longer about physical

strength but rather intelligence, which women also possess (Adichie, 2012). This is arguing

against traditional and cultural beliefs that are still popular but not relevant to this age.

Unfortunately, African women also reinforce patriarchy by culturally reproducing the elevation

of men and inferiority of women in growing girls and young women. Older women teach the

girls to respect those traditions that make them inferior and promote the boys. These traditions

reinforce masculinity. Nigerian society prefers a male child to a female child, and women desire

more to bear male children and thus female children see themselves as inferior, while males see

themselves as a better and higher form of human. The society gives more recognition to women

who bear male children and mocks those who do not, as exemplified in popular African

feminism strands (Bvuktwa, 2014).

Patriarchy in Politics and Governance:

The colonial administration brought to Nigeria a new political structure which favored

men. However, there were women who braved the intimidation and fought along with men for

independence but were not part of the new administration after the independence from colonial

rule which had been dominated by men. Women had been removed from the public sphere

during the colonial regime; therefore, women had a double burden of marginalization and

colonization from British colonialists and Nigerian men (Oni & Iyanda, 2013). This is like the

experience of African American women in the US where black women were faced with racial

24

and gender discrimination (Hills, 2000). During the first Nigerian republic in the early 1960s, no

woman was appointed to the parliament and none sat in the federal cabinet; they had no place in

the political order of the day. This is contrary to what happened in the precolonial era before

colonization, when a few women still had a place in the community. The first post-colonial

national government was overthrown by military in 1966 (Nigeria, 2017) who were in control of

the country until 1979 when the second republic was inaugurated. The military government had

no woman in any of its cabinets and leadership offices. This was also the case in the second

republic, where there were no women in political leadership cadre. The three decades of military

rule were male dominated. This pattern had continued for too long for upcoming generations to

remember that women and men had led the community together in the pre-colonial era.

However, it was only in 1999 in the fourth republic that 13% of women were appointed into the

country’s leadership capacities in the parliament of Nigeria. In 2007 a woman speaker was

elected for a few months, but she was later removed to be replaced by a man in what was

essentially a conspiracy plot, because Nigerian masculinity and ego could not bear a woman

leading a majority of men (Oni & Iyanda, 2013). The political outlook, policies, and practices are

masculine in structure and even the few women in government were perceived doing something

that was not approved, as the society is biased against women in power. There are constructed

roles for women in the society but not in power or leadership (Napikoski, 2017). Nigerian

society is shaped for male dominance. But feminists fight against these ideologies and agitate for

change in society to end male dominance and give women the same recognition for tasks

accomplished and authority like men (Lewis, 2017). The present national government in Nigeria,

which was elected in May 2015, is no better than the previous—it has males as the president and

the vice-president, and only 7 out of the 109 senators across the nation are women. In the lower

25

house there are 15 women out of the 360 members. There are 6 states with female deputy

governors out of 36 states, and not a single female governor (Nigeria, 2017; The Summary,

2017). This patriarchy in governance is also found in the home.

Patriarchy in Family and Home Building:

Marriage is the major way home and family are built in Nigeria. The pre-colonial

Nigerian marriage was mostly polygamous, and families lived in communities of extended

families. Men prided themselves in having multiple women as partners, while women were

forbidden from having more than one husband. Women are also used for domestic chores in

larger homesteads.

After colonialism, marriages were contracted either on a religious or traditional or civil

basis; each couple or the family decides the type they wish, depending on what the tribe or

religion allows. Religious marriages were performed according to Christian or Islamic ways,

while civil marriages were conducted in a government marriage registry. The Christian and civil

marriages allowed one wife while the traditional and Islamic allowed many wives (Countries and

their culture: Nigeria, 2006). The traditional and Islamic marriages are common within the

Hausas in the North and Yoruba Muslims in the West, and Christian marriages are mostly found

in the east and with those Christians of the west influenced by the British colonizers who

introduced the Christian religion. Unfortunately, women in all these marriages expect very little

from men in terms of companionship, personal care, and fidelity, because their relationships exist

without commitment (Johnson 2005). Marriages are not expected to have love and mutual

respect because women are not recognized as part of the decision making; instead it is all about

men. For example, in a Nigerian home, the male elder gives orders; older women are not

allowed to sit where men sat, whereas the son of such women are preferred more than the mother

26

in matters of the family (Adu, 2013) There is no love in most African marriages; this is explained

by visionary feminist theorist bell hooks, that love cannot exist where there is domination and

coercion. It is argued that if men should embrace the feminist thinking of mutual growth it will

enhance the emotional well-being of both men and women (hooks, 2004).The absence of love in

marriage and the presence of domination and patriarchal relationships further subjected women

to the more subordinate role.

Patriarchy in Marriage Contract, Childbearing and Rearing:

While marriages are expected to be about love between the couples, Nigerian traditional

marriages are contracted between the families of the man and woman. The woman does not

have the power to decide who and when to marry. Rather, at an appointed time, the man’s

family would bring the specified bride’s token, according to the tribal culture, which includes

some amount of money as decided by the customs in the family. This suggests that women are

taken as an exchange for the gifts and appreciation to the bride’s family for their gesture; hence

the man owns the woman and she is a property of the family, and they see her as a commodity

(Adu, 2013). Although this process is changing in this post-colonial age, the oppression and

domination are still in practice. Men violently abuse women and leave them to fend for

themselves and children. In the polygamous family setting, the first wife, who is senior,

coordinates and manages other wives; she makes the younger co-wives take on the daily

household chores while the senior wife handles the financial responsibilities for the family. This

places much burden on women as homemakers and keeps them as a possession of the man who

denies her right to pursue a career (Adu, 2013). Andrea Dworkin wrote that women have been

robbed by men of the potential for human choice, thereby, women have been forced to conform

in body, behavior, and values to become the object of men’s desire. She further states that there

27

is no room for women to make a variety of choices for themselves since they are not free (Lewis,

2017). This is true of African women. Unfortunately, women had subjected themselves to the

African tradition of childbearing and rearing, which critical intellectual African feminists argue

to be cultural entanglements for men’s oppression.

According to some strands of popular African feminists called Femalism, every African

woman should regard childbearing with pride, and if a woman does not have a child, she is

disrespected and subjected to humiliation (Opara, 2005). This is so because the society sees

woman as a child bearer, and she is held responsible for that failure to have one; she is further

oppressed in a situation in which she does not bear a male child. In African society, the more

children a woman has, the more respected she is, and she has even more respect for having male

children. Nigerian males view childbearing as the responsibility of the woman (Opara, 2005).

Because of this cultural intimidation, every married woman desire to have male children.

Although these cultural practices are declining in some urban areas, there are still considerable

humiliation and derogatory treatments given to both urban and rural women who do not bear

children and culturally they are labelled, and most times forced out of marriage (Adu, 2013).

Patriarchy in Family and Home Responsibilities:

Gender stereotyping begins as soon as the sex of a child is identified. The female children

become affiliated to the mother and her several traditional gender roles in the house, such as

fetching water and wood, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and other domestic chores. The male

children are expected to do chores like farming, gardening, and related jobs called “boys’ jobs”

and are encouraged to take after men’s way of life. Oftentimes, boys take after their father’s

professional careers, while girls are left to take on any of the stereotyped ‘jobs for women’ thus

perpetuating this aspect of patriarchal society (Ako- Nai, 2013). Moreover, in many homes the

28

male child is given preferred nutrition while the girl child is less catered for and may be

subjected to hard domestic chores. The girl child sometimes is sent to a wealthy home as a

house help in exchange for money for the family or to pay school fees of the male child (Adu,

2013).

Furthermore, it is the belief of men that a woman’s place is in the kitchen, whatever her

status. This makes men not to invest too much on the girl child and keep the boys away from the

kitchen. The society sees that women's priority is to be in the kitchen and unfortunately this

patriarchal tradition has become a norm for women. A move against this is regarded as a

violation of the norms (Adu, 2013). An example of this is found in a social response to a woman

who contested for a governorship seat of a state in Nigeria in 2015 April, as stated below:

“However, not everyone supports Ms. Aisha Al-Hassan as some people believe that

a woman’s place is in the kitchen and it would be a disaster to have а female governor. . .

[according to] comments about Ms. Al-Hassan circling around social media” (Vanguard

Newspaper Nigeria, November 11, 2015).

This is typical of the social inequalities entrenched in a patriarchal society which portrays

males as the dominant figure in all areas. The patrilineal culture which is common to all tribes

and ethnic groups identifies only with males, no matter the age. For instance, in the occurrence

of the death of the older man in a homestead, usually referred to as the family head, the eldest

son takes over no matter his age, instead of the wife of the late man or older sisters. In the event

that there is no male child, a male relative of the deceased man takes over the household; in some

cultures, the male relative also inherits the wife (Adu, 2013). Women are not given much regard

at home where there is a male family head and neither in the community, because the traditional

patrilineal system does not allow it. Women are instead denied leadership positions in the

society such as religion, politics, business spaces (HDR, 1999; ADB, 2010). Women are denied

decision-making powers; thereby, they have limited say in the matters that affect their lives such

29

as marriages, career, education and thus are victims of masculine dominated policies emanating

from culture and colonial legacies which have stereotyped and reduced women to a subordinate

role of homemakers, child bearers and voiceless citizens in political environment (UN women,

2011).

Patriarchy in Education/Academia:

Cultural practices that disallow women from making decisions at home and in the

community also deny women access to education. This is another part of the legacy of the

colonizers. Historically in Nigeria, formal education was introduced by the British colonizers and

missionaries, but the access was given mostly to men who benefited greatly from that ahead of

women (Adu, 2013, Fagunwa, 2014). This is a major factor responsible for women’s low

participation in the nation’s development activities. In 2006, the percentage of women’s

participation in national economic activities, such as government, private employment, and

entrepreneurships, was 61.2% of the population. A national report from Nigeria shows that 40%

of men that are literate are employed in the educational sector compared to 13% of women, and

this is the trend across all sectors of occupation in Nigeria (Acha, 2014). This also establishes the

huge gap between men and women in academic positions in Nigeria universities. From the table

shown below, only a few women compared to a much higher number of men rise to top

academic positions such as dean, provost, president, or serve in the council. The data was taken

from random sampling of male and female academia in five universities chosen in the North

Western universities for five years.

30

Table 1: Membership of University Governance Structure (North- West Zone

Universities, Nigeria, between 2009-2013).

2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Male Female Male Female Male Female Male Female Male Female

HODS 30 02 40 05 45 08 50 10 52 15 DEANS 25 03 28 05 35 07 40 10 45 12 SENATE 130 08 158 13 175 20 200 22 222 27 COUNCIL 40 05 43 05 50 10 61 10 65 15 President 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 0

Source: Ukertor,M (n.d)

This shows the masculine culture manifesting in university system jobs. There are more

men than women holding top academic positions, and this is common all around the country This

is not an indication that women are not capable to perform these roles efficiently, but men’s ego

denies women access to power because of patriarchal culture (hooks, 2004) which also assigns

the traditional socially constructed stereotyped low paid jobs for women, such as nursing, day

care, and elementary school teachers (Ukertor, n.d).

The Need for Women’s Empowerment: A Social Development Strategy:

The battle for women’s suffrage to Parliament in 1866 in England marked the earliest

recorded legal battle for equality between men and women (Fawcett, 2016). Since then the issue

of gender equality has grown to become a global concern. While it is generally agreed that

human rights apply to all human beings (men and women), women’s fundamental rights and

freedom have been limited by patriarchal practices and traditions. The situation is worse in many

African societies where colonial legacies and patriarchal culture assigns superior roles to men

and subordinate ones to women. In Nigeria, these practices reduced the status of women to be

lower and inferior to their male counterparts (Terry 2007). This in turn makes it difficult for

women to fully participate in as many social, political, and economic activities as men do

(Metcalfe 2011). This has brought tremendous setbacks for women in Nigeria in Africa.

31

This imbalance in the social structure has a negative resultant effect on national

development, because this patriarchal ideology, entrenched in Nigerian society, creates the

divide that keeps women at the home, in the role of mother and wife or in low paid jobs which

inhibit them from aspiring to professional careers, as in the case of academia shown above. This

destroys potential and capabilities, which results in a huge loss to the nation’s economic, social,

and political development, among other things. Moreover, the patriarchal society does not

expect women to have life ambitions and aspirations for greater roles and positions as men do in

all areas of their lives, including career, sports, politics, and leadership. Another claim of

proponents of Nego feminism, a strand of popular African feminism, is that women are expected

to be satisfied with positions and titles that are of collateral status of their husband’s professional

or social attainment. In other words, women should earn their social status by their husband’s

title, such as first lady or wife of president, or the wife of the chief, and others (Fagunwa, 2014;

Udodinma, 2013). This practice is common in Africa

Stereotyping and stratification of jobs, skills, political offices and businesses have

become so deep-rooted in Nigeria because of the cultures and ideologies of the society. This

began with the traditional gender roles in the precolonial era and was reinforced during the

colonial era when women were forced out of commercial farming and trading to do food crop

farming and petty trading which bring less money. Presently this practice keeps women under

glass ceilings and in low paying jobs which contributes largely to most women being in poverty,

poor health and suffering various abuses due to the imbalance and inequality of social status.

In view of ameliorating this menace, many schools of thoughts including the United

Nations organizations, scholars and feminists’ groups believe that empowering women has

become an indispensable tool for eradicating this gap and building women’s capacity for self-

32

development and poverty reduction. That it will also contribute to improving health and

economic situations for women which will directly increase the productivity of families,

communities, and the nation. This will also improve the prospects of many generations to come

afterwards. The importance of gender equality and women’s empowerment is underscored by its

inclusion in the United Nations’ millennium development goals (UN,2006). Howbe it, would this

include the voice of women and would their choice be the focus of such empowerment?

Women’s Empowerment: Efforts to Eradicate Gender Inequality in Nigeria:

There are many local and international interventions in the form of programs and policies

aimed at gender equality and women’s empowerment. The most central one is the United

Nations Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goal Number 3, which

emphasizes the complete eradication of all forms of gender inequality globally by 2015, later

extended to 2030 (UN, 2015; UNDP, 2011). Also, there are many feminist movements, other

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), development agencies, and efforts of government all

geared towards this goal. Many of these programs and activities are to create empowerment for

women and girls in form of skill acquisitions and access to education, opening of opportunities,

and giving women desired voices to make choices about their lives. These are aimed towards

achieving gender equality (Arun, 2010; MsAfropolitan, 2013).

Understanding the Concept of Empowerment in the Context of this Essay:

Literally, empowerment means a process of gaining or receiving power. Then power is

having access to control resources which can build the individual that has it. Power is to

challenge existing power that dominates the less powerful (Arun,2010). However, empowerment

has been a term used as a means of social change in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s; it referred to

the transformation of power to women from men who hold powers in every circle (Cornwall,

33

2016). Empowerment is also used as a grassroots term for women’s struggles in confronting

inequalities and transforming the unjust and unequal power relations (Arun, 2010). Now it has

become a dominant word used in the development world mostly for women.

The United Nations Women (UN Women) states that the goal of women’s empowerment

is building stronger economies to achieve sustainable development globally and improve the

quality of life of women. This could be done by empowering women to fully participate in

economic life across all sectors (UN Women, 2011). Critically, should empowerment be limited

to economic achievement? This is part of the issue where the empowerment programs are

flooded only with skill acquisitions which are not relevant to women. Empowerment is also

about making choices, having voices and access to resources is crucial (Kabeer, 2010). The

outcomes of these choices become their achievements. These resources include their ability to

access finances, education, health care, and their choices to participate in politics and having the

right to quality of life (Metcalfe, 2011). However, women should devoid themselves from how

the society had constructed them and develop a perception about themselves that will gain

control of the availability of the resources to realize their choices (Chen et al., 2007). Therefore,

women’s empowerment is the creating and giving access to women to make choices from

available resources. This will allow her the means to achieve her goal and gain control over her

life free from the burden of patriarchy. Women’s empowerment is also about power relations

changing in favor of women to challenge domination of men (Cornwell, 2016). This is the

change that women need to live quality lives. As earlier mentioned, there are many institutions,

international agencies both non-governmental and governmental and development organizations

and private donors that are involved in various empowerment programs. However, this

empowerment process should be participatory with the giver and the taker both taking active part

34

to address the same goal (Cornwall, 2016). This when the voice and choice of women in

empowerment process are included. This will be benefiting the beneficiaries and the benefactors

would have made positive impact.

The Roles and Efforts of International Development Organizations Involved in Women’s

Empowerment:

In response to the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)global

requests of 2000 to eradicate gender inequality (UN, 2006), many western countries and

development agencies responded to make an impact through the empowerment of women. For

example, the United Nations took the lead through its numerous agencies, such as the United

Nations Development Program (UNDP), United Nations WOMEN (UNWomen), International

Labor Organization (ILO), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural

Organization(UNESCO), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Food and Agricultural

Organization(FAO), and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization(UNIDO),

which have played lead roles in this endeavor in Nigeria. Also, countries like the United States of

America have the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), United State

African Development Foundation (USADF), while the U.K. has the United Kingdom

Department for International Development (UKDfID, Oxfam and others (Abuja, 2010).

Although they are diverse in their programs and activities, such as gender equality, women and

children’s health, education, human rights, food security and others, almost all the agencies

operate within the same framework and goal of transforming society and liberating the

oppressed. Sometimes they collaborate and partner with the governments of host countries or

local Non-government Organizations (NGOs) to perform their functions, as is true in Nigeria.

The impact of these international efforts is huge in combating social problems, especially gender

inequality. For instance, in 2017, USAID was involved in combating the activities of the terrorist

35

Boko Haram group in Nigeria and helping to provide humanitarian assistance to women and

children who are victims and have been displaced by the insurgency. USAID renovated schools

and facilitated girls being able to return to schools and also improved social services in the

communities affected (USAID, 2017). Other international organizations that have consistently

worked in the field of gender inequality eradication and empowering of women and girls include

UNIFPA, UKDFID, and UNESCO. They have established and conducted many types of

empowerment programs in Nigeria.

Significant progress made today by many international organizations towards women’s

emancipation and development is traceable to the initial declaration of the ‘women decade’ of

1975 to 1985, by the United Nations (Arun, 2010). This created an atmosphere for growth for

many women during this decade, especially the three world women conferences organized by the

United Nations held in Mexico City in 1975, Copenhagen in 1980 and Nairobi in 1985

respectively. The focus of these conferences was towards global women’s emancipation.

Similarly, the Beijing conference of 1995 was a reinforcement of the previous conferences and

thus opened new avenues for more cooperation between local women’s organizations and

development agencies partnering with international agencies to fight against gender inequality

(Arun, 2010). Furthermore, the millennium declaration of year 2000 also accelerated multiple

programs by the UN agencies and many other non-governmental organizations to create different

empowerment programs to eradicate gender inequality in Nigeria. However, as lofty as these

ideas were, there is a downside to them.

The Downside of International Efforts and the Justification for Grassroots

Empowerment Programs:

Many women’s empowerment programs in Nigeria sponsored by international

organizations and development agencies have been making slow progress and are unable to meet

36

their desired goals, because they were thwarted either by cultural barriers or perceptions, the

meaning and expectations of women of different ages, status, ethnic, social backgrounds in

Nigeria (Akpan, 2015). This underscores the importance of voice and choice in empowerment

programs and the participation of the beneficiaries in the process (Kaber, 2010). One other

reason for the slow progress about women’s empowerment programs designed by the

international development agencies from the west is attributed to non-inclusion of the Nigerian

women’s voice and choice in the design (Akpan, 2015). Arun (2010) argues that successful

empowerment programs must be responsive to the recipients’ cultural beliefs, institutions,

traditions, needs, and behavioral patterns. USAID in 2017 reports claims that recipient countries

should consider designing their empowerment programs, for it to be effective and achieve a

desired goal (USAID, 2017). This is a positive step towards giving choice to women. If this

would come to play.

However, most internationally sponsored programs are prearranged and funded by the

principal donor and left for intermediary agencies to execute. However, these programs often fail

to bring the empowerment desired by women because such programs are executed without

proper understanding of the context or the needs of women (Oshun & Ofem, 2014). Therefore,

women’s empowerment programs in Nigeria must be relevant to the people and their context.

Programs should be indigenously conceived and culturally delivered to meet the local needs of

the people. Empowerment programs that are indigenous use local resources to solve the

problems confronting women and locate their interests for their personal development which will

translate to community and national development (Akpan, 2015).

37

Features, roles and effectiveness of grassroots empowerment programs:

Grassroots empowerment programs are effectively and strategically developed in the

communities for the dwellers based on their cultural, social, political, and religious

understandings (Wesley & Dublon, 2015). They offer many advantages to the beneficiaries and

the community where they operate because of the shared values. There are no specific rules in

grassroots empowerment, but grassroots programs use a fundamental bottom up approach to

work on the resources and potential available to women in their context, instead of designing a

foreign-based program that is alien to them in a top to bottom approach (Wesley & Dublon,

2015).

Grassroots programs thrive well in communities where the recipients have the same

peculiarity of shared values and socio-economic needs, because the program design will have

structures that align with the traditions and values of the communities where it is domiciled

(Wesley & Dublon, 2015). However, this could sometimes pose a danger of oppression because

of these traditions. Programs in communities could be conceived locally while requesting

donors’ funding and supply of resources, marketing, and other supports to enhance the potential

of women. However, navigating through patriarchal settings demands the use of intellectual

feminist theoretical approaches in designing these grassroots programs. This often challenges

the traditions and powers of masculinity and patriarchy. Therefore, the features of effective

grassroots programs must include a framework that incorporates social class, culture, religion,

voices, and participation of women during the formative stage (Akpan, 2015).

Below is an example of an effective grassroots empowerment program in Saki, a village

in southwest Nigeria. The majority of women and girls that live in Saki village are highly

impoverished and without access to any skills and education to earn a living. These women and

38

girls were also victims of patriarchy and masculine dominance because of their poor socio-

economic status. They were mostly peasant farmers and individually produce small quantities of

shea butter to make a living. They need freedom from this oppression which begins with

economic freedom. To address this, an entrepreneur used an indigenous approach to empower

these women along their long-time small-scale production of shea butter, which turned out to be

a huge success. She encouraged and trained the local women to expand their scope on the use of

the local plant products (shea butter) for beauty and skin treatments. The women were organized

into groups using their existing interest of cooperative micro-savings and market unions, which

started to mass-produce shea butter for commercial use. The shea butter plants were from their

farms which individually would formerly be sold without much profit. But with some supply of

basic locally manufactured and improvised equipment and training support, they were able to

increase production for businesses beyond their local use. It brought skill, financial benefit, and

self-esteem to the women who gained freedom from dependency and oppression of men (Essiet,

2015).

Grassroots empowerment programs may also be in form of the social mobilization and

the organization of women into active civil society groups based on an existing platform like

religious affiliation in community. The church or mosque serves as the initial meeting place

which later evolves into a new social group. This social group often opens many opportunities

for women such as access to credit facilities and loans, business contracts, and the learning of

leadership skills. Women can also maintain political, legal, and religious rights through these

social groups and consequently obtain some level of power to achieve social benefits, political

influence, and community leadership roles, and membership also serves as a collateral for

business opportunities (Akpan, 2015). This type of empowerment program gives women a voice

39

to challenge the domination of patriarchal order in Nigerian society. Examples of such groups in

Nigeria include Awesome Treasures Foundation (ATF), which was founded by Jumoke

Adenowo. ATF is a faith-based organization supporting the overall growth and development of

women leaders in Nigeria. Well known for its Woman of Purpose summit, Awesome Treasures

connects women with one another and helps them to find their purpose (Olushoga, 2016).

However, conventional religious institutions and social groups could be a threat to re-inscribing

patriarchy, because of the dominant patriarchal culture of religions and society. For example, the

Christian religion is structured after men’s dominance; hence Christian empowerment program

may be patterned or created after the same structure.

Grassroots empowerment programs can also be about a mass education approach. This is

used as a support and for creating awareness that would bring a change in the lives of women

and girls in the community, such as enlightenment meetings about how a young girl needs to stay

in school, reject early marriage, and stand against the abuse of men. It could also be on health

and reproductive/ maternal issues (Ahunanya & Ofem, 2014). Sometimes it could be in form of

giving assistance in terms of materials and services to enable them to live a quality life and attain

a desired goal. For example, there is a grassroots empowerment program that provides girls with

sanitary towels during the menstrual days. This provision enables girls to stay in schools,

because they miss school when they cannot afford the sanitary materials and would have missed

five days every month of school year. This is partly responsible for their overall poor academic

performance compared to their male counterparts and consequently affects their social and

economic status (Ahunanya &Ofem, 2014). This is confirmed by the Water Aid research that

shows that 45 percent of girls of a community in Nigeria miss school when they are menstruating

(Thompson, 2018). This also is responsible for low graduating rate for girls, because many

40

eventually dropped out of school for petty trade or marry early or become victims of sexual

abuse. Therefore, the purpose or goal of this form of programs is that if women and girls are

provided with adequate resources, this will enable them to overcome all barriers and poverty that

may inhibit them from staying in schools for self-development towards empowerment. On the

other hand, if men were to menstruate, the story will be different, sanitary materials and other

resources needed would be federally funded and freely supplied to all men, and menstruation

will be celebrated as claimed by Gloria Steinem, because it is a patriarchal society (Steinem,

1978). The crux of the issue is that women and girls should be given all the necessary

encouragement to overcome the cultural barriers that inhibit them from staying in schools.

Grassroots empowerment may also include vocational training skills for girls and women

who do not want to pursue a career in academics. These may offer them opportunities to learn

basic business methods of working for profit and keeping their records and banking by

themselves without recourse to men. The nature of vocation will depend on the environment and

resources available and the interest of the women in the community like the example of Saki

village given above. Another grassroots empowerment program is the adult literacy class which

is often open to all women and girls who cannot afford the fees and rigors of conventional school

systems. The curriculum is designed with local content that is understandable and easy to relate

with the politics, culture, religion, health, and economics. It employs indigenous languages as the

medium of instruction. The process provides skills and knowledge about their environment and

enhances their productivity towards meaningful living and challenges the oppression of men in

the society (Fagunwa, 2014).

Unfortunately, grassroots empowerment programs sometimes are conceived only to

increase access to education and skills acquisition towards poverty eradication. This will only be

41

relevant to many girls in rural areas who often drop out of school due to local cultural practices,

which include early marriage and unwanted pregnancies, family caregiving, sanitary issues, and

health issues related to poverty. But this will exclude other girls and women not in this group.

Therefore, for such grassroots programs to be effective, there should be involvement of the users

in the conception and it should be affordable with adequate infrastructure support that meets the

rural environment. This will meet the needs of women and girls in these strata (Zaid&Popoola,

2010).

However, the most formidable challenge is changing the perspectives of the traditional

popular feminists about empowerment, which is not only about provision of better social system

as a women’s empowerment strategy in Africa, but it is about giving voice and choice to women

both in rural and urban areas. As much as their argument translates to a means of giving

meaningful life to women, it does not translate to independent power; rather, it is a temporary

power to navigate the immediate problems of sufferings and poverty. This is because cultural

practices embedded with patriarchy and masculine domination have sway on this type of

empowerment which does not address a complete power shift. This is the position of popular

African feminism strands that have locked African women under the oppression of men.

Therefore, empowerment programs should be designed as a process that involves the benefactors

and beneficiaries to confront domination with an end in view rather than a delivery project to

supply a need at the moment (Arun, 2010).

Conclusion:

This chapter has discussed gender relationships in Nigeria from the pre-colonial times. It

expounded upon the reinforcement of existing patriarchy in Nigeria during the incursion of the

British colonists. Present-day Nigeria is characterized by masculine culture and manifestations of

42

patriarchy are visible in all institutions, structures, and in the society at every level. The

experience in Nigeria is similar to many African countries, as gender inequality is endemic in

Africa.

The chapter shows the efforts of international communities, the United Nations agencies,

and governments of western countries, like the United States, USAID, United Kingdom, and

similar agencies to ameliorate this menace. The study discussed the specific efforts of the

Millennium Development Goals. However, all these initiatives have not brought the desired

result because of entrenched masculine and patriarchal cultures dominant in Africa. However, as

this study argues, an indigenous approach works better through grassroots empowerment

program because grassroots empowerment programs are effectively and strategically developed

in the communities based on women’s cultural, social, political, and religious understandings. It

is also built on the resources, potentials, experience, and choice of the women. It must follow a

bottom-up approach, not the top-down approach of the western-designed empowerment

programs. An example of indigenous empowerment program was given of Saki in the

southwestern part of Nigeria. Moreover, grassroots empowerment programs are not only for rural

women but for all women irrespective of their locations, because the bottom–top model offers an

inclusive approach that give women voice to make the choice of how they would be involved in

the process of social transformation.

Finally, this chapter recommends that empowerment programs should be user conceived,

participatory in all forms, and take into consideration the cultural context without compromising

the emancipation of women. Additionally, men should engage in the struggle for equality leading

a social reform by changing patriarchal structures of women’s subordination into structures that

promote women’s right (Freedman & Jacobson, 2012). Gender inequality will be quick to

43

diminish if men who benefit from the inequality would stand up and advocate for transformation

while encouraging fellow men and boys to engage in the change process and challenge the

dominant practices of masculinity (Connell, 2005). Then everyone would be a feminist (Adichie,

2012; hooks, 2000).

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CHAPTER THREE: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

“Feminism is for everybody” (hooks, 2000). When Leymah Gbowee was a little girl in

Liberia, her father protected her and four sisters from the secret ritual of female genital

mutilation that plagues over 100million women and girls in Africa. Gbowe’s father stood his

ground that he would kill anyone who would try to hurt his daughters; none of the girls went

through the horrific cultural practice. The man defied this typical African traditional ritual and

stood against the girls’ exploitation. His action became a springboard that molded Leymah into a

feminist activist. She later organized several nonviolent activities including a sex strike to protest

women’s oppression, social and gender injustice in Liberia, and other parts of Africa. She was

the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (Knowles, 2012).

Gbowee’s father was a feminist not only by his stand to oppose the exploitation of

females but also, he empowered Gbowee to continue challenging the oppression and injustice in

the society against women. Gbowee’s father was a feminist, because of his resistance to

dominant patriarchal culture that exploits and oppresses girls and women (hooks, 2000). This

aligns with hooks’ argument that men or women can perpetuate sexism or fight against it. Hence

hooks’ (2000) advocacy that “feminism is for everybody” (p.1) is exemplified in Gbowee’s

father’s actions.

Gbowee’s initial experience is similar to many oppressive and exploitative problems

presently confronting millions of women and girls in Africa. These are the outcomes of cultural

practices, patriarchy, colonization, globalization, tribal conflicts, wars, harsh economic situations

and multiple social disorders that dominate the African continent.

Therefore, this chapter critically discusses African feminism as the theoretical framework

to critically analyze women’s marginalization and oppression under the burden of African

45

traditions and culture. The chapter also reiterates the importance of women’s voices and choices

in empowerment programs as solutions towards the establishment of women’s liberation and

gender equality in Africa. It critically analyzes strands of African feminism that include both

popular and intellectual categories of African feminism. The chapter makes claim on

STIWANISM as the strand of African feminism that advocates for women’s participation as the

most helpful theoretical framework in addressing rural Nigerian women’s status and everyday

problems.

Characteristics and Categories of African Feminism:

African feminist theory is multidimensional in approach because it draws on many

perspectives of African feminist researchers, scholars and activists such as Acholonu, Ogunyemi,

Oyeronke, Adu, Gbowee, Wangari Maathai, Adichie and ongoing discourse within and outside

the continent, including scholars who are not Africans (Freedman 2001). It is obvious from the

discourse that African feminists are diverse in their views as the continent is, but they are mutual

in their debate about what theory does and should achieve in terms of feminism both as

movement and in academia (Atanga, 2013; Nnameka,2004).The dominant theme of African

feminist theory is the same as other feminists’ theories, which identified women as an oppressed

group that needs liberation, and an end to their exploitation (Whyte, 2016; hooks, 2000).

Defining Africa feminism in a single statement seems problematic because of the

complexities and varying perspectives of the feminists as earlier mentioned. However, this does

not deny the existence of African feminism with its distinct peculiarities (Atanga, 2012;

Sachikonye, 2010).

The complexities around this concept are about the two words: Africa and feminism.

Considering the diversity of the African continent, African women from North Africa (Arab

46

women) engage in a much different culture from women in the south and the west or from the

east (Black Africa women). They face different cultural issues and the perspectives of the

feminists also vary in addressing these issues through the lens of African feminism tenets

(Atanga, 2013).

In the U.S. and other Western nations, there are various types of feminism such as liberal

feminism, radical feminism, Marxist/ socialist feminism, black /womanist feminism with

different definitions that explain their goals, but with same purpose of women’s liberation

(Pommper, 2017). For example, Marxist feminism focused on investigating and explaining the

ways in which women are oppressed through capitalism (Sachikonye, 2010). However, since

this paper is answering questions about African feminism, a more general definition of feminism

is appropriate. Sachikonye defined feminism as a paradigm in social theory and a movement in

society for advocating enhancement of women’s emancipation in the dominant patriarchal world

(Sachikonye, 2010). Going with this definition, would it not be right to say all women’s struggles

for emancipation from masculine oppression, either through the nationalist movements, or

social- political activism, are all feminists’ movements? Even if it was not so tagged? The

example of Ekpo and Kuti in Nigeria in National Council of Women Societies, Winnie Mandela

and Albertina Luthuli against apartheid in South Africa, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia,

Wangari Mathai of Kenya, including Gbowee and her father mentioned above, and others fall

within the scope of this definition (Adu, 2013, Atanga, 2013, Knowles,2012). Similarly, western

feminists’ struggles are not limited to commitment to gender equality, but also to a free society

where everyone is treated equally, although it might be a long weary road towards its realization,

but the desire to continue in the struggle is foremost for feminists (Adichie, 2002; hook, 2000;

Sachikonye, 2010).

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Further, critical analysis of the definition of feminism as composed of theory and

movement confirms the existence and peculiarities of African feminism. Early writers about

African women such as Buchi Emecheta shared their burdens under the patriarchal culture in her

series of works, The joys of motherhood (1979), The bride price (1977), and others which

portrayed women living under the burden of patriarchy and the consequences of challenging the

culture. But she refuted the term feminism while critics say she did not promote women’s

liberation in her works but rather she alluded to the cultural values and sexual identity of African

women. However, contemporary researchers, Ayesha (1997; 2000), Oyewumi (2005), Atanga

(2013), Adichie(2012), Ogundipe-Leisle(1994) Mama(2001) and others confirm that there is

feminism in Africa which is like other forms of feminism elsewhere around the globe (Asian,

Western, Chicano) but with specificities because it has developed in a different cultural context

(Atanga, 2013). This also distinguishes African feminism from other forms of Black feminism,

African American or British- African feminism. The experience and the realities of Africa -based

women is quite different from those black women outside Africa (Ako- Nai, 2013;

Sachikonye,2010). While black women in the United States contended first with racial

discrimination as black before gender equality (Hudson-Weems,1994; Collins,2005), the Africa-

based women contended first against colonization and women’s marginalization than men’s

oppression under the burden of masculine traditions and patriarchy cultures. However, the

experience of African women is changing. The dominant discourse in African literature and

current research reveals that African feminism is broadly divided along intellectual and popular

categories (Atanga, 2013; Sachikonye, 2010).

From the two categories identified above, the intellectual feminists are the pragmatic

African feminists who are trying to redefine women’s role that would make women more

48

relevant in the social, political and economic system (Sachikonye, 2010). They advocate for an

active voice for women against the taboos of gender hierarchy and the ancillary status of women.

The intellectual feminist category rejects the culturally based practices affecting women such as

female genital mutilations, girls’ and women early marriages and lack of education, traditional

gender roles and other subordinate roles. They embraced the abolition of these kind of cultural

practices, by approaching African women’s issues in a more pragmatic way, asking for women’s

rights and change in policies to give women a voice. This group also engaged more in academic

theories and activities to place African feminism within contemporary scholarship (Sachikonye,

2010).

Popular feminist category is the brainchild of feminist scholars who make African

cultures and traditions the center of their argument and criticize western feminist ideologies

(Sachikonye, 2010). Their claim is that African identity is embedded in the culture; hence, they

would not want to follow the path of intellectual feminism categories which they have tagged as

having a western influence (Atanga,2012). They believe in traditional gender roles such as man

is the breadwinner, and women cook meals and bear and care for children (Knowles, 2012).

Nkealah (2016), an African feminist and writer, expounded more on African feminism

with the listing of all its strands whether popular or intellectual categories: Motherism,

Femalism, Snail-sense Feminism, Womanism, Nego-feminism and Stiwanism. She argues that

conceptualizing feminism in the African context serves two distinct purposes. First, it is an

alternative way to explain the difference between other feminisms (western and other black

feminism) theories which do not speak to the experience of the African based women. Secondly,

it provides the tool to analyze and critically understand African women’s peculiarities that affect

gender equality. This is important as it also provides direction towards the appropriate solution

49

for empowerment of African women in their unique context (Nkealah, 2016). However, these

strands fall into either one of both categories of African feminism as shown below.

Critical Analysis of Africa Feminism:

The following section critically analyzes African feminism and some of its strands along

the binary of intellectual and popular feminism. From this analysis, I came to a conclusion that

STIWANISM, as a strand of African feminism, is the preferred strand that best describes and

provides the theoretical framework to analyze gender inequality in Africa and understand rural

women’s empowerment in Nigeria. The concluding section highlights the tenents, strengths and

weaknesses of African feminism.

Popular Feminism:

The first category of Africa feminism is called popular feminism; this, as the name

implies, is embraced by a majority of women. The proponents and their followers are women

who are rooted in the culture and traditions of Africa (Sachikonye, 2010). The reason that more

African women follow this is because of its dominant ideology found in the traditional

experiences and cultural practices that are central to these women. The major beliefs of the

proponents and the followers of this category keep with the traditional gender roles of women

(Atanga, 2012). These women are contented with subordinate power and recognition of the

gender roles society assigned to them, such as home makers and child nurturers. Adichie

condemns this subordinate position and encourages women to aspire for leadership roles rather

than allow men to choose for them what to do (Adichie, 2012). This popular category of African

feminists seeks to improve the lives of women through advocacy for better financial power and

life that may or may not be totally independent of men. They want protection from abuses and

violence, also access to good education, healthcare facilities and other basic needs of life. They

50

prefer to live within the traditions and culture that subordinate women through patriarchal

domination if their basic needs are met (Sachikonye, 2010).

The adherents of popular feminism argue that intellectual feminism is alien to African

culture. They argue that if they follow the intellectual category views, the African cultural values

will be eroded (Sachikonye, 2010). They believe that African identity is in the cultural value

which must be maintained and respected. This was seen in some strands of African feminism like

nego-feminisms, snail sense and others as they are analyzed below. They deal with negotiations

and subtle survival strategies with men’s domination without challenging it; these are all

temporary strategies. This is contributing largely to the perpetuation of the menace of oppression

and inequality. The section below highlights some of the strands of popular African feminism.

Some Strands of Popular African Feminism:

Nego-feminism:

Nego feminism is a combination of two words from the belief systems of the proponents

of this strand. The first is negotiation; this is a traditional expectation that women must negotiate

with men whatever they desire or consider as right (Nnaemeka,2004). The second is no ego;

women are expected to possess a sense of low esteem, not having high expectation of self and

ambition for their social and professional life (Nnaemeka,2004). This strand of African feminism

is built on social behavior expected or constructed for the African woman. This strand proposes

that African women should navigate the patriarchal oppressive life without challenging it. This is

typical of the African society’s expectations of women which demands that women should be

compliant, submissive, passive, and emotional (Pompper, 2017 p5). This is the traditional

African construct of the ideal woman, for which many women would strive. Nego- feminism is

also reinforced by religious belief that teaches women submission to men. Christianity and Islam

51

teach women submission and give them subordinate roles. Although, there are a few exceptions

in modern African Christianity that allow women some leadership roles. This is different from

the Christianity that came with colonization which is men dominating. The proponents, Obioma

Nnaemeka and her school of thought, believes that African women should tow the way of

negotiation and compromise to survive their oppression.

This strand uses cultural means to explain and analyze how traditional African women go

through oppression and domination. However, this is a temporary solution to get over the

menace. With this in practice, men continue their oppressive authority over women. For

example, women are sometimes subjected to use sexual negotiation with men to navigate

through barriers. An example of this is Adichie refers to as bottom power, to navigate patriarchal

barriers in the society, such as securing good grades in college in return for sexual favors

(Adichie, 2000).

Femalism:

This is another example of popular feminism category. This strand was founded by

Chioma Opara, a Nigerian feminist and scholar. She believed in the cultural use of African

women’s bodies. She argues that the biological features in women are considered a form of

power to confront men’s subordination (Opara, 2005). The understanding is that those features

are a means of strength, because the African culture believes that there is an embodiment of

femaleness that lives inside a woman’s body. This is assumed to be made for procreation and

nurturing through which they possess the traditional role of motherhood. Therefore, African

women are not willing to share or relinquish this motherhood role with men who do not possess

these biological female features. Opara’s school of thought believes that since men could not do

this, going by traditional gender role setting in Africa, women should use this as means of

52

strength to fight against oppression (Opara, 2005). Many African women prefer to be mothers

above any other roles since it gives them the greatest honor the traditions could give one. This

makes them to be culturally fulfilled and relevant. However, men exploit the desire of

motherhood in women as a reason for polygamy. Women want more children, and women are

willing to join in the practice of polygamy to change their unmarried status, which is culturally

disparaged no matter how successful they might be in any other role, or career (Salami,2012).

Critical analysis of this strand shows that it does not respect individual sexual orientation

and personal choice about the idea of procreation. This strand does not also consider women who

are unable to bear children due to medical reasons. The argument of this strand seems unrealistic

in the face of present development. There are now in Africa women who choose not to marry or

have children, and those who have not married due some other circumstances. Families adopt

children and those who have children sometimes give them over to grandparents, nannies or

foster parents for nurturing. There are more abortions and abandoned babies than before, there

are more motherless children’s homes, and these are examples to show that children bearing is

no longer a pride for some, either because the cost or efforts of nurturing children is more than

the prestige of having them. This strand is totally rooted in culture and traditions, and it falls

within the popular categories.

Snail-sense Feminism:

This strand was propounded by a Nigerian feminist Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo. Its aim is

to be a survival strategy for women to navigate through the patriarchal African society without

violence. Like the nego- feminism strand, women are expected culturally to be quiet, submissive

and docile to accommodate the tough, difficult, hard oppression of men (Pompper, 2017,

Ezenwa, 2015). It draws its name and perspective using a snail as metaphor. A snail crawls over

53

rocks, thorns, cliffs and rough terrains smoothly and efficiently with a well lubricated tongue

which will not be injured or destroyed by these harsh substances. The snail also carries its house

on its back without feeling the strain and goes wherever it wishes unharmed but will often recoil

quietly into its shell as soon as they meet with difficult situations and then later comes out again

(Ezenwa, 2015).

This strand therefore proposed that women must adopt the snail survival strategies to

overcome all the barriers to their livelihood, development and the realization of their potential in

the harsh patriarchal society (Ezenwa, 2015).

However, in critically evaluating this strand in Africa, it is obvious that women continue

to bear the yoke of patriarchy (Udodinma,2013). They also suffer oppression because they must

recoil at the face of these oppressions. The social expectation is that they do not confront the

traditions; rather they should quietly navigate through the physical, emotional and sexual abuses

(Nnemaka, 2004). This strand also falls within the popular traditional category of African

feminism.

Critical consideration of this strand further exposes that women are deeply subjected t

oppressed life because of the cultural and traditional position the society placed women. More

so, religious and political institutions, through the instruments of ethics, doctrines, policies and

by- laws further prohibit and restrict women’s freedoms, and place men in a more advantageous

position (Pompper, 2017).

Intellectual Feminism:

Intellectual feminism is rooted in academic circles and challenges contemporary issues

that affect women. Its principal focus is to give women voice, choice, and freedom. It detaches

itself from culturally laden issues in Africa. The critics of this intellectual Africa feminism

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category believe that these feminists share values with western feminism. Therefore, many

African women in the rural parts of the country and scholars who believe in traditional African

cultural values consider this theory to be alien to Africa, and they refuse to align with it. They

claim that it does not speak directly to the local needs of rural African women. It is therefore

critiqued for rejecting the traditional feminine subordinate role of no voice and no choice

(Pommper, 2017). Because of this argument, rural women are alienated from this category. The

limitation of this intellectual feminism category is that it does not express the position of

majority of African women who are found in the rural areas and it seems to present the

ideologies understood by few elite urban women who have seen the traditions as oppressive. By

so doing, it has shut down the concerns and desire of majority of women in Africa.

Strands of Intellectual Feminism:

Stiwanism:

STIWANISM, means Social Transformation Including Woman in Africa (STIWA), and

for proper alignment with the common terminology is called STIWANIsm. This was founded by

Molara Ogundipe-Leslie, an African feminist, gender justice and social transformation activist in

Africa since 1994 (Leslie, 1994). Stiwanism is about inclusive social transformation of Africa

where African women play significant roles by partnering with men in this transformation

agenda. The main argument of this strand of feminism is to educate and empower women to

jettison their traditional subordinate role in public participation. This strand aims at making

women to be more active in social participation. While this is a departure from the popular

African feminists which is entrenched in African traditions that reinforce patriarchy (Akali, et al,

2013), it collapses the ideology of supremacy of men and inferiority of women. Ogundipe is

disrupting the normal discourse and practice of ‘manpower’ that excludes women’s ability and

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potential. She argues for a partnership in social and community building. This strand of African

feminism agrees with Adichie, Ayesa, Joda and Cassey who argue for a reformed African

feminism that meets the twenty first century ideologies needed to rebuild the nation and confront

global challenges.

This strand stands as the framework for this study to have a transformed Africa society

that it is not all about traditions that cripple a group of people and subject them to subordination

either by religion or culture, but to transform society through empowering women and girls to

have equal opportunities as men. This is very significant to this study with its focus to create the

enabling environment through a change of systems that will no longer keep women subjugated

with traditions. White colonialism reinforced the patriarchal dominance, the days after colonial

regimes have not been free from the same practice. The political and economic space has become

a treacherous one for women entrenched by neo colonial activities that oppress women, relegate

them to the background in the society and often place men at the top of the social ladder. The

transformation of African society is the responsibility of both men and women, and it is also a

collective interest (Akali, et al, 2013).

Stiwanism focuses more on the structures that oppress women and the way women react

to these institutionalized structures. Such structures include traditional marriage and glass

ceilings that restrict women professionally. There are roles and positions women are considered

unfit to occupy. Ogundipe-Leslie argues that historically women have been kept from social

development and now is the timely struggle for African women to liberate themselves. But she

also was concerned about the perception of African women about the existing structures rooted

in culture of inequalities and power dominance of privileged men, which women have taken as

the preferred way to live. African women have lived with this pattern for a long time and become

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dependent on men. She critiqued African women for their belief that feminists are haters of men

and culture. Women should disrupt the norm and aspire for a movement, structure and practices

which are inclusive of women in social transformation of the society (Leslie, 1994). The

opposition to this strand is so strong since men would not want to share power as this oppression

and marginalization has become a norm for men and benefitted them.

Stiwanism as Theoretical Framework:

This strand of African feminism provides the critical lens to view the gender position of

women in Africa. It highlights the departure from the precolonial and colonial positions of

women. It critiques the traditional gender roles assigned to women, and advocates for inclusion

of women’s power, voice and choice in nation building. It reveals the social and political

oppression placed on women. It equally rejects the traditions and cultures that are patriarchally

dominated. It argues that inclusion of women in social reformation will result in national overall

development which is the goal of the United Nations, USAID and other development agencies

for functional empowerment.

Leslie Omolara, the African feminist scholar and activist, theorizes STIWANISM as a

strand of African feminism, which aligns with hooks (2000) and Adichie’s (2104) position of

inviting everyone to be feminists. She argues that men must be included in the process to

eradicate this social menace of subordinating women in the society. Similarly, Olaopa (2016), in

analyzing the works of Leisle, stated that men and women should fight the gender injustice

plaguing African society and engage in the transformation process by including women’s voice,

choice and strength. This is a departure from African practices and arguments of popular

feminists that re-inscribe patriarchy and dominant masculine culture. Stiwanism exposes the

cultural, spiritual and educational restrictions placed on women, which have become acceptable

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by other strands of feminism, such as snail, nego feminism. Stiwanism critically advocates a

rethinking and repositioning of women, not towing the same line with other strands which align

with cultural practices that oppress women.

Although there is not much study or literature on Stiwanism, the few available pieces

have critically shown that Stiwanism is a useful analytical tool for understanding women’s

various identities and all possible statuses a woman could acquire within a social context

(Olaopa,2016). Therefore, this research aims to contribute to knowledge by critically focusing on

the dynamics of women’s difficult positions to express their views, and participate in religious,

political, and other social circles towards social transformation. Furthermore, STIWANISM as a

theoretical framework gives this study the suitable lens for the analysis of gender inequality in

Africa entrenched by culture and traditions. Finally, its scholarly approach to challenge the rising

global oppressions and marginalization facing women in Africa will be very significant to the

development of literature on contemporary African feminism theory (Atanga, 2013). More so

STIWANISM fits with the critical scholarship of disrupting the traditional status quo by

advocating for women’s participation in the making of new society.

Tenets of Africa Feminism:

Although there are no stated distinct tenets of African feminism in the literatures, there

are common themes prominent across the African feminism. The following six tenets are

considered very vital to African feminism.

African Feminists’ Rejects Patriarchy:

African feminists’ major attention is about how patriarchy has penetrated the

psychological and political systems of the society and values the males higher than the females,

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using all the instruments of law, tradition, force, ritual, customs, education, language, labor (etc.)

to keep women governed by men in both public and private life (Salami,2012).

As a result, African feminism seeks that African men and women should mutually benefit

themselves in transformative and progressive relationships both in the private and public spheres

(MsAfropolitan,2013). Therefore, African feminists assume responsibility for striving for such

equal societies rather than hoping that men will someday redistribute privilege and power to

create a better, more harmonious prospect for future generations (Salami,2012).

African Feminists Reject Continued Colonizing Agendas:

African feminists are very aware of all the past and present actions of colonizers to make

Africans dependent on their colonizers for development and survival through post-colonial

agenda and ideologies. These affect women through institutionalization of masculine structure

in religion, trade and politics (Salami,2012). African feminism seeks to unburden the history of

imperialism that spans through centuries and give a new language and ideologies that will

liberate women to make progress from the past racialized trauma that affects men and women in

different ways with women bearing the heavier parts (MsAfropolitan,2013).

African Feminists Reject Traditions and Cultures that Exploit Women:

African feminisms cherish tradition, as tradition also harbors a precious cultural memory

and a rich legacy of knowledge and spirituality. It seeks to abandon or enable tradition to adapt

to current times so that rather than stagnate, it can enrich the society, as customs and culture

should do (Sankara, nd). However, many traditions have been disadvantageous to women, the

dominant masculine culture has favored men and oppress women (Ako- Nai, 2013). Both in

public and private, the traditions in the households, marriages, sexuality, inheritance and

leadership have not favored women. Therefore, African feminism seeks to see a change in the

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traditions that will work for and give women the choice to live the same way men do

(Salami,2012).

African Feminists Promote Grassroot Development Agenda:

The African continent is one of the poorest in the world (Collier,2007). This is largely

due to the West’s colonization and neo colonization agenda through military interventions, NGO

propaganda, resource exploitation, unjustifiable debt and trade policies, and other neo/colonial

practices. These all have devastating effects on African states’ ability to cope with multifaceted

problems confronting the continent which has more impact on women. Poverty affects women

more than men (Sankara, nd).

African feminism therefore seeks to develop African countries through the creation of

social institutions that will resist foreign hegemony and encourage engagement in grassroots

strategic thinking and a workforce inclusive of all its population (Salami,2012). This would

engage the potential of women resources for development. The promotion of grassroots

development policies and programs instead of foreign empowerment propaganda by NGOs that

exclude African women’s voice (MsAfropolitan,2013).

African Feminists Advocate for Sexuality and Respect of Rights:

African feminists seek t encourage the fundamental human right of ownership over one’s

body. Doing so would help dismantle and challenge the rigid heterosexual African norms and

embrace freedom of sexuality (Salami,2012). There should be proper attention to address the

psychological and physical suffering that women endure after violation, such as sexual abuse,

domestic violence and trafficking. There should be protection for women’s bodies during

conflicts and redress for violation (Salami,2012).

African Feminists’ advocates for Transformation of Global Society:

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African feminists seek to use the arts (fine arts, culture, music) and love as the language

to change the world. Love and justice are complementary to revolution and change. As found in

literature of Adichie, Makeba’s music, Nike Ogundaike’s art and others, love and justice that

focuses on healing, reconciliation, and on an insistence that the language of African womanhood

can transform society into one where sexual, racial, spiritual, psychological and social equality

are afforded (Salami,2012). In such a society, people can pursue lives with less daily micro- and

macro-aggressions, less hostility and more space for self-realization. African feminists are at the

forefront of using creativity to express that progressive idea. Examples of this include how

Adichie’s drives the change in narratives about women through her literature and talks, Miriam

Makeba’s music against oppression and Miriam Syowia Kyambi of Kenya with her artwork and

paintings to show the history of violence experienced by women.

African feminism is seeking to forget the differences of the African feminism and other

feminisms around the globe, seeking to collaborate with others as co-dependent in an

interconnected world to engage in eliminating social and gender inequality globally

(MsAfropolitan,2013).

The Strength of African Feminism:

The multiplicity of views and strands may be considered a strength of African feminist

theory. Since theory helps to understand a phenomenon and guides how to react to it (Nealon &

Giroux, 2011), African feminism’s multiple strands and perspectives allow for multiple analysis

which provides many approaches to understand the social, political and economic situations of

women of different ethnic backgrounds in Africa. In addition, cultural pluralism is engendered

even when there are contradictory perspectives like intellectual and popular categories of African

feminism, the scholars still believe in African feminism (Pompper, 2017). In my opinion and

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understandings from the literatures, the portrayal of many strands of African feminism theory

shows how African women from different views and perspectives choose to navigate through the

man’s oppression and domination as shown from the previous sections about different strands

and proponents. Some women chose to handle this in their traditional position of being

submissive and docile. For example, the nego feminism, and snail sense models, give a

temporary solution that works for women without challenging the status quo. This, however,

creates more room for oppression.

The theory also helps to establish that indigenous approaches will solve the problems

differently from non-African approaches. It helps to create the understanding that African

problems can best be solved using their methods rather than other methods (USAID,2017).

African feminism is also applauded for not being woven around one theory but considering the

several strands of the theory further confirms the multi-phase of cultural variance within the

continent, by ethnicities and religion.

Some Identifiable Weaknesses of African Feminism:

Most of the strands of the theory are based on the traditional beliefs and social

constructionism of women; hence they were designed to push women to navigate around gender

issues for a temporary solution without challenging or attempting to change the system. Adichie

argues that since culture changes, women must look forward to changing cultures that are not

beneficial to women and future generations (Adichie, 2012). The popular African feminists’

theorists are culturally inclined as reflected in the strands of their theories. Whereas, culture is

characterized with patriarchy and would not bring empowerment and emancipation to women.

Unfortunately, women also participate and live with these cultural practices and played

significant role in their own oppression, because they reproduce these traditional practices which

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they cherish so well. However, they are barriers and a menace to equality, because it favors men.

A critical and decisive approach is needed to break the traditional practices. Such approach must

constantly confront and challenge those traditions and culture for women to have voice and

choice towards empowerment. This makes popular African feminism strands unfit for women’s

emancipation.

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CHAPTER FOUR: METHODOLOGY

I arrived safely at Ado Ekiti, the capital city of Ekiti state in the southwestern part of

Nigeria on the evening of May 22, 2019. It was hectic to connect with internet at my base in

Ado Ekiti; this was one thing I took for granted since I am used to open wi-fi on the WSU

campus. It was a struggle to make the initial adjustment since I needed to communicate with

family and colleagues in USA on my progress. Further, I had to travel on a dangerous highway.

The journey was very exciting and comfortable from Pullman to Lagos. But I waited for few

days in Lagos to consolidate travel plans to Ekiti which is about 600 miles from Lagos.

During these days of waiting in Lagos, as a qualitative researcher, I was very careful to

gather more information from people but not about my research but about the security situation

of the country which was precarious then. Kidnappings, abductions and robbery were on the rise.

There was some speculation that these were associated with the poor economic situation, violent

political conditions because of the disgruntled losing opposition parties, the attacks of religious

terrorists, Boko haram, the Fulani herdsmen and pockets of other groups launching counter

terrorists’ attacks against the main Boko haram sect. The highway is the major place these

abductors carry out their nefarious activities which makes this journey to the research site very

treacherous. From the information I gathered about their operations, the abductors usually stop

moving vehicles on the highway using any form of obstructions to make motorists slow down,

even putting a herd of cattle across the highway or using big potholes on the highway. Then the

abductors jump from their hide-outs and remove people from their vehicles into the thick bush

and subject them to horrible situations, like heavy beatings, forced walking great distance

without food and rest, drinking from muddy stream water, sexual abuse of women, and sometime

killings. These abductors demand huge monetary ransom from family and friends or work

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organizations to release their victims; when the ransom is not forth coming or too small, the

victims are killed but if the abductors receive enough, they let the victim go free.

Amidst all these confusing reports, I left Lagos to Ibadan (another big city, 150 miles from

Lagos) and picked up my nephew who is an undergraduate at another state university who

volunteered to drive and help in the fieldwork. Mr. Festus was sent by Dr. Ade (the host

professor in Ekiti State University and link to my data site) from Ado to Ibadan to be of help to

guide us on the way through the dangerous hideouts of kidnappers and abductors. We got to Ado

Ekiti in 4 hours from Ibadan, but all together the trip from Lagos lasted about 8 hours with the

heavy traffic in Lagos. We were all warmly received by Dr. Joe and Mrs. Bo Ade and family.

Thereafter, a short planning meeting was held to consolidate our field work and we rested for the

night.

Qualitative research as a mode of inquiry is mostly used in fields of study that deal with

human activities (Creswell, 2007). It helps researchers focus on understanding social issues from

the perspectives of the participants as they make meaning of their lives (Merriam & Tisdell,

2016). The ordeal I narrated above to get to the participants in Ogotun Ekiti in Nigeria became

necessary because I wanted to have the voices of these participants as data for analysis. Scholars

such as Creswell(2007) and Denzin and Lincoln(2005) claimed that when marginalized and

oppressed individuals or groups are the participants in an inquiry, it is necessary that their voices

be heard and included in the data, from which the researcher’s adequate representation of their

situations can consequently be used for social justice (Creswell,2007; Denzin &Lincoln, 2005).

Since qualitative research is used to describe, understand, uncover meaning, question

assumptions, and interpret the phenomenon or participants under study (Crotty, 1998; Savin-

Baden and Major, 2013), with focus on the contextual meaning of a social phenomena, I chose to

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collect data at the site of research rather than over the phone because this will make me more

sensitive to that context (Merriam, 2009). Consequently, when research is conducted in the

natural setting of the study, it helps to engage multiple methods of data collection (interview,

focus group discussion, participants’ observation and document/artifacts collections) that are

interactive and humanistic. In addition, because qualitative research seeks to uncover the

meaning of social events, or phenomena and describe the way knowledge and realities are

constructed (Creswell,2007), I seek the perspectives of the rural women at Ogotun Ekiti as they

construct knowledge and realties about women’s empowerment (Marshall & Rossman, 2006;

Savin-Baden and Major, 2013).

Qualitative Research:

Historically, qualitative research emerged from the field of anthropology and sociology in

the early decades of the twentieth century (Savin-Baden & Major, 2013). The 1920s and 1930s

works of anthropologists Boas, Mead, Benedict, and Malinowski, and sociologists of the

Chicago School established a structured and focused method of inquiry about human social life

(Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). Denzin and Lincoln (2005) argued that qualitative research has

colonial roots because early qualitative work was conducted on indigenous people by researchers

from colonizing countries. The goal was to find out about people and their cultures from data

collection methods such as observations and interviews. White settlers used the information

gathered to understand the culture and customs of people who were different from them to

colonize, oppress and marginalize ‘others’. However, since 1960, qualitative research witnessed

different stages of development with the emergence of new approaches that critique the 17th

century explorers of American Indian communities and19th century ethnographies of American

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immigrants (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). Contemporary researchers are more aware of how

research can be used in oppressive ways.

Over these historical developmental stages of qualitative research study, different

research designs have evolved which include case study, ethnography, narrative, and more

(Merriam & Tisdell, 2016; Creswell, 2007). This research uses case study to study women’s

empowerment in Nigeria. The essence of using case study for this research is to dig deep into a

specific context and location and to eliminate incorrect inferences about grassroots

empowerment of rural women in Nigeria.

Qualitative Research Design: Case Study:

Case study is a way to conduct a study on a specific program, event, activity, group, or

individual, and it is bound by time and location, and the activity. (Merriam, 1988). Therefore, the

setting to study rural grassroot empowerment programs in Nigeria was the Ogotun Mat weaving

center, at Ogotun Ekiti in Ekiti state, Nigeria south west, in Africa. This keeps the study as a

unit, focused with a detailed account of the specific participants located in a specific place in

Nigeria at a specific time in history (Gerring, 2013; Savin-Baden & Major, 2013).

The site of this study is at Ogotun Ekiti State in the south western part of Nigeria. First, I

provide an overview of the history, political and fiscal structures of Ekiti state. Ekiti State is the

host state to Ogotun the site of this study. Thereafter, I give detail description of the research

location. I start with a brief background about Ekiti state.

A Demographic Overview and Historical Account of Ekiti State:

Ekiti state is one of the 36 states in Nigeria. The state was created from Ondo state in

1996. The two states were in the now defunct western region of Nigeria when Nigeria was ruled

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regionally in 1966 and not by the current system of 36 states. At the time of creation in 1996, the

population was 1.75 million people. But the population has grown to 2,398,957 people in 2019

(Ekiti state gov,2019). Ekiti State is situated within the tropics. It is located between longitudes

40°51′ and 50°451′ east of the Greenwich meridian and latitudes 70°151′ and 80°51′ north of the

equator. It lies south of Kwara and Kogi states, east of Osun state and is bounded by Ondo state

in the east and in the south, with a total land area of 5887.890sq km. Ekiti state has 16 Local

Government Councils, with 151 cities and towns (Ekiti state gov,2019).

The capital city is Ado Ekiti, where I lived during my data collection period and travelled

from there to Ogotun -Ekiti and Ilawe towns daily, about 30 miles one way. Ado Ekiti has two

universities out of the three universities in the state. One of the universities in Ado Ekiti is

publicly owned by the state government and the other is privately owned by an indigenous

luminary lawyer. Private schools at all levels are self-sponsored hence students must pay

exorbitant fees. The children of the rich attend these private colleges, and so there are fewer

students, while the public universities charge lower fees compared to the private universities.

The students’ population at the public university is about 25,000 students which overflows the

capacity of the resources in the school. There are 541 public elementary schools in Ekiti, 141

high schools and 20 special colleges for different categories of people, such as handicapped,

nomadic, women training centers and technical colleges spread round the state. Ekiti is called the

fountain of knowledge because of the value placed on education, almost every household would

have at least a PhD holder.

However, the occupational demographic in Ekiti is skewed, having the highest number of

doctoral degree holders in Nigeria and simultaneously still have people who are uneducated,

farmers and crafts makers. In the present-day Ekiti, every child has access to school; there are

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free public elementary and high schools in all local government towns and villages. There are no

mineral resources or big industries in the region; rather farming is the major means of livelihood.

The men and women who engage in farming are into cash and food crops. Men do game hunting

for sale and food because there is thick forest within most towns and high mountains. Many

people who live in urban areas outside of the region travel to Ekiti to make good buys of most

organic food items and wild game that are not readily available in cities like Lagos. Restaurants

in Ekiti serve freshly cooked organic farm foods, fruits, vegetables, drinks and meat hunted from

the forests. Many families enjoy these traditional foods from farms. I also did when I was there.

The people of Ekiti are predominantly Christian, and they are moving from polygamy to

monogamy because of westernization, economic factors and Christian religious practices. They

were formally traditional African religious worshippers, but Christianity has taken over this

although there are still small fractions of old people that still perform these traditional rites

sometimes. Islam is also in very small numbers compared to Christianity.

The interesting thing about all the 151 towns in Ekiti state is that they are suffixed with

Ekiti; this shows their homogeneity in culture and language. I say it is their last name. This is so

unique in Nigeria; nowhere else you find this.

The Political Structure of Ekiti State Government:

Generally, in Nigeria there are three tiers of government: namely the federal (national),

the state and the local government with distinct roles and responsibilities to discharge to the

public. There is separation of powers at the national and state level according to Nigerian

constitutions which function through the executive, legislative and judiciary branches.

However, the bicameral style of government is limited to the federal government; each

state has elected members in the two houses of legislation, while at the state it is unicameral. The

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state is headed by an elected governor to serve a four-year term but can be reelected for a second

term in office. There is a deputy that is appointed at the party level and co elected with the

governor. The governor, with the approval of the State house of assembly appoints his cabinet

members and other political office holders. The legislators are also elected at the poll. There are

statutory public servants who are not elected but they are civil servants by career. The local

government is headed by an elected chairman and councilors to represent the wards. The Local

governments are vested with the duties to bring governance close to the people at the grassroots

and the cities (Ekiti state gov,2019).

The Fiscal Structure of Ekiti State Government:

Ekiti state, as one of the 36 states in Nigeria, has the same statutory functions as other

states. Some state functions run concurrently with the federal government functions, such as

education, agriculture, health and some social welfare services among others. Unfortunately,

most of these functions have been neglected either by the states or federal government and have

been taken over by capitalist businessmen and women under the privatization policy that was

introduced some years back by the national government.

Likewise, the local government and the states also have distinct and concurrent fiscal

responsibilities. Some of the distinct functions of the local government are: street cleaning,

refuse disposals and sewage clearing, road and street maintenance, and the community and

economic development of the citizens. This is in the purview where grassroots empowerment

belongs.

The past, military leaders took control of the Nigerian government for 29 years from

1966 to 1999 with a break of 4 years (1979 to 1983) of civilian rule and during their time in

power, they centralized the fiscal operations of the three tiers of government and, political

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structure in line with colonial legacies. The national government operated a unified revenue

system where allocation to states and local government was decided by the central military

government (Khemanu, 2001). The local government received allocations directly from the

national government rather than cooperating with the states for their allocation. Further, the local

government raised funds internally through various taxes from the community. There are some

Federal and state taxes categories while there are local government taxes. Some examples of

local government taxes include; stores and markets taxes, rentals of spaces, cemetery, refuse and

sewage, Televisions, radio, and more that are under the purview of the local government. This

arrangement has slightly been modified with the rule of a civilian government. The national

ruling party in power controls the national revenue, and they disburse generously to the states

where their political parties’ rule as well as the local government councils that support the ruling

party benefit from the state and national government funding.

In the past few years, Ekiti has been governed by governors from the opposition party to

the ruling national political party; hence they have been running on meagre revenue that can

hardly sustain them. Although, the local government are nationally controlled, but the money

was not given to them directly, rather the national government appoints an administrator for any

projects or financial expenses to be carried out at the local government level. For example, the

local government has the direct oversight of elementary schools and community health services,

but the national government would rather pay their staff and teachers directly through a national

government administrator and most of the times, payment is not regular or accurate. The national

government appointed administrators for local government project and often neglect other

projects and other maintenance duties of the local government. Such as empowerment programs

or community health services to the rural people. Thereby render the local government very poor

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and unresponsive to perform their statutory functions. This was the situation of Ekiti until 2018,

when the governorship candidate from the ruling party won the election and was formerly

installed. Now that the incumbent governor is from the ruling party, he controls the revenue

received from the national government and would only give whatever they deem fit to the local

government. The monies are not enough to meet the budget and responsibilities of the local

government. This is confirmed by Jide, the deputy director of community development services

in the local government, who was a participant in this research. I wonder then about the

internally generated revenue that is supposed to accrue to the purse of the local government such

as taxes, but because they lack the autonomy, they cannot spend the money according to the

participant I interviewed.

Ogotun Ekiti:

The choice of this location is basically because there is grassroots empowerment program

in form of a center called Ogotun Ekiti Mat Weaving center founded under the Better Life for

Rural Women program. The center was in the news some years ago with their products and there

are more women of low social economic status in the rural areas than in the urban grassroots

empowerment program. More so, I have a very strong link to the town through a colleague who

is a professor and researcher, who happens to be a native from the town who could be a lead to

the town, because it is always daunting when there are no internal connections to the

participants, though it is not impossible but may be very tedious to through the cultural settings

and barriers of outsider. Therefore, I consider it appropriate for this research to use as case study

to dig deeper to understand the meaning of the women’ choice in empowerment programs and

their voices in the operations.

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Ogotun is one of the three major towns that make up the Ekiti South West local

government and her present population is 6, 432. It is a border town between Ekiti States and

Osun States, it is bounded in the south by Ikeji- Ile and in the east by Ipetu both in Osun State. It

was bounded by Igbara- Odo on the north side, one of the three towns that makes up the local

government, and I drive through this town each time I go to Ogotun for research.

The people of Ogotun are predominantly Christians. They differ also in political affiliations.

There is one major road that literally divides the town into two sides, but the streets are well

spaced out within the town. There is a local post office which all the time I was there was very

quiet and the police office which was situated to the king palace. During the day time, the town

seems very quiet since children are all in their schools, there are two known public elementary

and high schools located at both ends of the town. Like many other towns in Ekiti, the town

could boast of many doctor and other professions but there is no other industry in the town.

Ogotun has a large farmland and the community dwellers are mostly farmers of both food

and cash crops. The town is also known for commerce in agricultural produce. According to my

history fact about Ekiti state, Ogotun is said to be one of the towns with the largest farm

settlements in Ekiti state. Farm settlement are smaller native farmsteads with some sizeable

farmers. Ogotun has about 25 farm settlements all around the town. And each farmstead is well

spaced away about 5 miles or more from the main township.

Beside the agriculture, the town is also known for the craft of mat weaving. This is an

ancient craft identified with this town like many towns in Ekiti is identified with some crafts or

cultural designs such as pottery, beadmaking, or palm wine tapping. Ogotun mat weaving

although is gendered, this craft is left in the hands of the women and it has given the town great

recognition and reputation.

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My gate keeper to the women participants in the research, Lydia, was also the wife of the

king and leader of the women. She said that the mat weaving craft came to Ogotun with the wife

of an ancient ancestor who founded the town so many years ago (not known), when they

migrated from Ile Ife (this is believed from Nigeria story as the origin of Yoruba race). This wife

of their ancestor came with the leaves and stalk used for mat weaving and started the craft of

weaving mats for sleeping. In those days there were no beds, and the mats were used instead.

The craft grew and the quality of the mats people sleep on became a status symbol to reflect their

social status. This craft of mat weaving promoted Ogotun and brought the region into limelight

of public recognition within the country and beyond.

Ogotun mat weaving center was founded on the bedrock of this ancient, traditional craft

of the town during the military administration of Badamasi Babangida whose wife, Maryam

lunched a scheme of Better Life for Rural Women nationwide. Below I provide some historical

background of the center.

From the stories of these women, I learned that in 1987 the military government built a

center for empowerment for them in their community. This center was called “Better Life for

Rural Women” and it was equipped and staffed by the local government and used different

machines to produce bags, table mats, covers, folders and other household materials from the

woven mats. Better Life for Rural Women was created to provide empowerment for rural women

in Nigeria. Maryam Babangida proposed this at the grassroots level for rural women. This is

done through agriculture and cottage industries like the mat weaving in Ogotun. The center in

Ogotun thrived well under the military rulership and a little after then, according to the women.

The women confirmed that the government and the women were all making profit from the

center. Because women go to weave mats and they were paid money for the mats they weave but

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sometimes the women would sell the mats they had to the center which in turns were used to

make some other products. Women also learn the use of some of the machines to make other

households' products.

Lydia, who was my main informant and who I had the most interacts with because of her

availability and was the gate keeper as well since she organized the times and place we could

meet with the women. She seemed to be the most educated of all the women, hence she has a

status that I feel other women do respect, more so since she is the wife of the traditional ruler and

by cultural practice, she is the mother of all women.

However, she is very apt with historical fact and dates which corroborate with other

people I spoke with and some newspaper magazine and online articles I have read about the town

and development of empowerment programs in Ekiti State. There was no official publication so

far about the grassroots empowerment of Ogotun, but so many newspaper publications have

some information about the programs but not in details. There is no public library in Ogotun, or

at the local government headquarters; hence documents about the origin or operations of the

center are not public resources besides the one I can glean from my informant and other

participants. One of the disturbing information she gave me was the neglect of the civilian

government about women empowerment programs which I confirmed to be true while I went to

the town.

Lydia told me that the center thrived well until the civilian took over the rulership of the

country and the maintenance and operations of the center was abandoned. According to Lydia:

“Since the advent of civilian government, we saw nothing”. She meant that there is no significant

impact of the civilian government on women’s empowerment programs compared to the military

government. I drove past the abandoned center each time I came into the town because it was

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close to the main road from the northside which I have to travel into the town. The building is

occupied by a team of fierce looking armed military personnel who mounted roadblocks and

were always dressed in their military uniforms to secure the town against the onslaught of the

kidnappers who go about as herdsmen into small communities. With this situation, I was advised

against taking photos and stopping to view the building to ascertain the present situations. The

experiences of women at Ogotun which I discuss in the next chapter revealed that the role of

government has diminished in supporting grassroots empowerment programs since the rule of

civilian government in 1999.

Research Process:

Being a native of Nigeria and having lived there for about 40 years, I am familiar with the

cultural traditions in Nigeria, and know that heads and principal officers of the community

should be consulted before meeting with the residents in their domain. There is a culture of

respect for community leadership, and this was duly observed. I set this plan into motion by

contacting Ade with whom I had telephone conversations so that he could to talk to the palace

authority to obtain permission to conduct the study prior to my arrival. We also identified the

local government and the community development department in which the grassroots programs

were housed, but we were unable to locate any program donors, sponsors, or any other

stakeholders beside the government officials who are connected to the grassroots empowerment

programs. However, the idea to stick with Ogotun empowerment center became apparent

because of lack of resources and time, and the security challenge that was predominant in the

country.

Similarly, we raised a research team that was led by Jimmy, a young graduate student in a

university in Ekiti who also the research assistant to Ade my host professor was. Jimmy was also

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a native of the town. However, because the study is about women, and the researcher is a male, I

hired a female research assistant who was familiar with the culture, language and the area but it

turned out that I could not find any within the time frame but also realized that the relationship

Ade and Jimmy had with the palace and the some of the women negates the need for a female.

Although we had a fieldworker who is a woman that joined us on this study every day and no

doubt provided the needed balance for the team. Ade and Jimmy had done some preliminary

work to identify the key players in February before the arrival of the researcher from the USA in

May. Prior information about the projects, the consent forms and interview protocols were

written and translated into local language (Yoruba), my native language, which I speak and write

very well, and copies were sent through email to both research crews. We also created a

WhatsApp group where we exchanged information and pictures of site locations. All approvals

from Ogotun were verbal; no written approval was obtained. However, the Institutional review

board (IRB) at Washington State University demanded to have all the copies of documents to use

with participants translated to Yoruba which I did and submitted. An exemption category was

sought since the interviews and focus groups were for women of 18 years and above. This was

approved and consequently travels plans were concluded. Suitable accommodations and air and

ground transportation were concluded both in Lagos and Ado Ekiti. I choose to stay in Ado Ekiti

30 miles away from Ogotun for easy access to better facilities and security and for translations

and transcription with the other research teams that is helping me. I have three audio recorders

and one video/camera with back up from phones of the research teams to avoid malfunctioning

and extra power sources were available. However, I experienced an ugly situation in one of the

earlier interview sessions with a woman when I failed to switch a main voice recorder on in an

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interview and I had to return to do it again because the backup was not clear but after then, we

got to understand how to use them better. I was always writing notes.

Prior to going to the field, there was a training for the fieldwork helpers on translating

from Yoruba to English, video recording, driving, conduct and other needs on the field. I wanted

for all to be on the same page about what we were about to do. On Thursday 23rd May, we had

more meetings on recruitment and training of fieldworkers, printing of some items and getting

the vehicle ready for the trip.

We eventually left Ado Ekiti about 1pm and drove through the smooth but a less

travelled road until we got to Odo, Ilawe and we had to stop at Igbara - Odo to pick Jimmy a

graduate research assistant who has worked prior on the research site and identified the

participants in preparation for data collection. He came from Akure to join Dr. Ade, Baba, Ruth

and myself at Igbara Odo about 15miles away from the data collection site at Ogotun Ekiti. We

got to Ogotun about 4pm and drove straight to the palace to pay a homage to the King (it

customary in all cities and towns in Nigeria to have a traditional ruler, who is the administrative

head) as part of the culture in the society. We met with the Queen who is the head of women in

the town. Fortunately, the queen held multiple offices as related to women in the community; she

is a leader of the women’s cooperative society involved in grassroots empowerment and happens

to be the gatekeeper for this research work with the women. Hence, I had the first interview of

about 1 hour 30mins with her, and many times we spoke on different.

We were unable to meet the women in the community because many of them were in

their various homes preparing dinner for their households; we planned to return to meet them on

following Monday. This first day trip was so successful with the showers of rain in the previous

evening making the day cool for me from the hot sun without disturbing our activities during the

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day. This is the beginning of my data collection process which I discuss in detail in the next

section.

Data Collection:

To understand the empowerment process contextually from the participants’ perspectives,

not the researchers nor the donors’ view, it is necessary to hear their stories and to understand

their experiences through their activities in their natural setting (Creswell, 2014). Therefore, I

conducted twenty in-depth interviews at Ogotun Ekiti, Ilawe -Ekiti and Orin- Ekiti in seven days

total in the towns spending average of thirty minutes with each participant interviewed. I had two

participants-observation days each lasted for twenty-five minutes, and four focus group

discussions. The first was at the local government office with the junior staff of the community

development department, and the second was three women at Ogotun palace from the group of

women invited, the third was a large group of nine women but one was going in and out of the

discussion, this took me about two hours, and the fourth was the senior staff of the department of

community development at the local government and lasted for about one hour. I collected

copies of historical cooperative society’s loan and cooperative documents and few mats woven

by women and bought some products made from the mats as artifacts. The literature and reports

of the Ogotun Mat weaving empowerment center, named as Better Life for Rural Women, that

were available online was not the real situation when I visited the site. The location had changed,

and the operations of the government sponsored empowerment programs had been suspended.

The interviews and focus group responses were audio-recorded in the native language

which is also spoken by the researcher. This were translated to English language and transcribed

for analysis. The presence of the researcher to collect data as human instrument is an added

advantage, as it makes for immediate response both ways especially when clarifications are

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needed. I was able to read and gather more information through their nonverbal communications

as their body language and gestures express and support their verbal responses (Merriam

&Tisdell, 2015).

Participant-observation is a major means of collecting data in case study research

(Merriam, 2009). This afforded me a first-hand experience of their cultural settings and the

meaning of their actions in relation to the research questions. Unfortunately, the big center was

not operational, but I was twice at the model center for observation. This model center was

owned by the daughter of Lydia which is a small version of the government abandoned center. I

met Fola, the woman sewing the bags and other products from mats and interacted with her and

observed how she made those things but with only one other woman who came to sell her mats.

This was good experience and I had to return to see how the women from the community engage

in the process. In both days I spent 20 minutes each time since there is less activity going on

there.

Through many times of interactions with these women in the community, I learned more

about their cultural, religious, gender perspectives and their children and the values the women

hold about empowerment programs. Included in the lists of participants I interviewed were five

men besides two men on my research team who volunteered useful information during the

process which formed part of the data analyzed. The data collection process afforded me the

opportunity to critically inquire why and how the empowerment programs work for them

(Yin,2014).

Data Analysis Procedure:

This is a process where meaningful patterns and themes emerged, through the process of

thorough examination, comparison, contrasting and interpreting the data collected (Miles et al,

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2014). Finding these meaningful patterns and themes is done consciously with using the research

questions. Because there is no discrete demarcation of stages as found in positivist research,

qualitative research analysis can overlap since it looks like a loop pattern of revisiting the data as

additional points or connections emerge that shows a deeper understanding of the question. The

foremost steps were to do data reduction process by transcribing data from interview voice notes;

this was in two levels for me. Since half of my participants spoke Yoruba, the transcribed scripts

in Yoruba were translated into English Language. However, this sometimes seems very

challenging since there are some expressions or statements that would not have direct

translations to English, but I was able to rewrite such with much carefulness without distortion to

the original meaning and this was done under the careful guidance of my advisor. More so, being

present at each location as the instrument of data collection was a great advantage because I

noted all the nonverbal expression that supported each response. Other data from documents,

artifacts and my field notes were all laid out and organized by labelling each of them. These data

are now made to go through a condensed process in order to manage the large size of this

information into meaningful and intelligible terms focusing on the issues being addressed in each

of the three research questions. I started the categorization of data and preliminary themes

appeared. However, at this initial stage there were fourteen themes which I considered large but

using a deductive analysis approach helped reduce to more focused categories until three themes

have been laid out to address the research questions. (Miles et al, 2014).

For this research, interview data was collected by audio tapes from about eleven

randomly chosen women participants at Ogotun Ekiti, with three men and three women from the

local government office at Ilawe, one woman and one man at Orin Ekiti, a village close to Ado

Ekiti where there is a farm.

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The field notes were written at any convenient time during the field work and sometimes

immediately on issues such as some emerging reflections, thoughts, moments, comments and

remarks that will add substantial meaning during analysis (Savin-Baden & Major, 2013). I

updated this each day after the fieldwork and expanded immediately to include all important

details of the data for clear analysis.

I kept an analytic memo that contained a first-hand self-report about the journey, the

conduct of the research, especially throughout the data collection and analysis process. I have

included substantial parts of the memo in writing this chapter and it has also help to piece

together many data that cut across many concepts and topics coming up in the findings.

I kept all audio files, the transcribed scripts, coded and categorized working documents in

a designated place in my private computer. I used pseudo names in all cases for analysis and

displaying of data’ however, real names were used for locations. The scripts written by hands

were later typed and saved electronically in excel spread sheet and word document in my private

cloud account for easy accessibility anywhere I worked on the document. I choose to save

documents in cloud since I am moving across large distance from Nigeria to the United States, to

avoid loss or damages to the devices. Papers documents were collected and used to cross check

the accuracy of information when rereading the transcripts for correct meaning. All data

collected was securely kept in an enclosed safe area.

Trustworthiness:

Trustworthiness is a concept used in qualitative research that refers to and describes the

validity and reliability of a research study since qualitative researchers do not use physical

instruments with established metrics, However, qualitative researchers ensure that research

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studies possess qualities that are trustworthy, and they are named credibility, transferability, and

dependability (Trochim, 2006).

In quantitative studies, the term reliability refers to the extent a post positivistic research

finding can be replicated (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Which means reliability is conducting the

same research again under the same conditions, with the same findings. However, in a qualitative

study, the study is about humans and their experiences in a social dynamic manner at a given

time. If the same research is repeated after a while, not everyone present in the first study will be

present again or the people may not have the same experience in the same situation again.

However, this does not undervalue qualitative research, but rather it explains the dynamism of

human beings being different from static objects (Merriam, 2009).

Credibility is about checking to ensure that the researcher as the research instrument

captures what the study is meant to capture. This is confirmed by checking the findings with the

data collected to see if they are congruent (Merriam, 2009). Since the researcher who is the

instrument will also interpret the data, the steps and processes of doing these need to be well

stated as well as the perspectives of all those participating in the research with the aim to present

a holistic interpretation of the study. In addition, in qualitative study, credibility is also ensured

through triangulation of data with regards to multiple data collection, or multiple investigators

collecting data on same phenomenon, or multiple data analysts using same data but working

independently with the original data. These will increase the credibility of the research study

(Merriam, 2009).

Since qualitative research is also about dependability and consistency, which largely

depends on me as the research instrument, I have dedicated myself to rigorous training and a few

in class project as practice and displayed my knowledge about conducting research before my

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dissertation committee. For qualitative research results to be reliable and credible, I employed

strategies to ensure this, such as triangulation of all my data source; I conducted in depth

interviews, focus group discussion, participant observation and document and artifacts.

Unfortunately, because of distance I could not perform member checks on all the participants,

but I was able to speak with some of the research team to confirm what they shared in the data,

such as Jimmy and Ade. More so my daily interaction and time spent with these people in their

domains, seeing some of the things they talked about, their homes, farms and some of these

women in person gave me enough detail to enable readers to determine the credibility of the

research work. Following this experience and process, I have become conversant with the

content and procedure of the research to show that I have rich context for this study which

should perhaps be able to provide a rich description of the situation that will help the reader

determine the degree to which the outcome of the study can be transferred to other contexts or

settings successfully. This is transferability in qualitative research study. A qualitative research

study is expected to be very descriptive about the procedure and techniques in conducting the

research (CSU, 2017).

Reflexivity and Positionality:

Reflexivity in qualitative research is a practice that assists the researchers to be conscious

and to rigorously reflect on their positions, personality, and epistemological stances that can

influence them during the research. Knowing this makes researchers aware that there is a

subjective part of them in their study. This could better help qualitative researchers to be self-

critical (Savin-Baden & Major, 2013). Reflexivity is both a check and guide for a researcher in a

qualitative study to give the study credibility. The researcher will make a record of his position

and how the researcher’s beliefs, values, and identity will play out in constructing meaning in the

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study. The researcher will also keep a reflexive memo stating the values and positionality of the

researcher which according to Greenback, (2003), should be a part of study outcome to consider

such study valid (Greenback,2003).

In writing my analysis, I have consciously stated my different reflexive moments as I go

through data and sometimes, I wrote this on my memo, when I feel very emotional hearing the

stories of oppression from the women. I tried during the interview with some men to conduct

myself in order not to interrupt the process because of how upset I was because of the responses

and ideas the men have about women’s living conditions.

I have endeavored to follow the guidelines of the IRB and kept all necessary records,

during the analysis and presentation of results. I have observed high level of confidentiality

during the data collection; no real names were used for any participants and I allowed each

participant freedom about what she or he is comfortable to share with me and sought their

consent before I interviewed them and recorded their voices. These are ethical issues that must

be considered (Merriam, 2009).

While reflexivity is the process of critical examination of the entirety of oneself,

positionality then is the varying and dynamic self of the researcher that builds into the research

process. This includes identities, experience, historical or epistemological connections with the

study (Holmes, 2014). These all play into the research and it is important to note that it both

shapes the research and influences the interpretation of the data and the outcome. Declaring

one’s positionality and relationship with the research would enable the reader to make an

informed judgement about the research (Holmes, 2014). Therefore, reflexivity is the process of

capturing in detail and systematically at every step of the research process how positionality

plays into the research (Cohen & Crabtree, 2006).

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During the research process, I acknowledged my positionality as a male, heterosexual,

urban educated, from USA, Christian from the Yoruba ethnic group and a critical scholar. This

has played a part in and influenced this research study, because both the researcher and the

participants have the potential to impact the research process (Merriam &Tisdell, 2016). I saw

myself as the urban dweller going to a set of participants who are rural dwellers, and this is a

noticeable gap and it reflected in the interactions of language. Although I speak Yoruba, my

ascent have long disappeared, I could not totally speak fluently like the women or my other

research team which connotes I have lost grip on some social cultural gesture as Barker said

since language is culture (Barker, 2013). Although I tried to wear simple casual dress common

to the environment, this did not give me the same look like the women or the men., It seems my

clothing has not been touched by the intensity of the sun and my skin color looks out of the

scorch of sun for a longer time. The look and feel I have seeing this woman made me feel their

poverty; they have no money, no good clothes and no food. There was a time I gave them a cash

gift, I told them to use it to pay for their transport to the research point where we had the group

discussion, despite knowing they were no transport services.

Mostly, I considered myself more of an outsider than an insider, because of the noticeable

social and economic status differences. Nevertheless, the women were able to relate with me

especially through the gatekeeper. However, this may have been much reduced if I had spent

more time in the community to sharpen my local language skills and more involved in other

community activities. However, I was conscious to be reflexive throughout the process to make

the study more transparent, credible, and trustworthy as possible (Bourke, 2017).

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CHAPTER FIVE: FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS

This study aimed to interrogate a grassroots women’s empowerment program in rural

Nigeria. In doing this, the women who were involved in the program needed to bring their stories

and experiences into this study. Similarly, there are other major players involved in this study as

the research questions highlighted. These other players include men in the region, and men and

women government workers; all these individuals contributed to how these rural women

participants understood the concept of empowerment. The men’s motives and understandings

contrasted with the women’s motives and understandings reveal the complex, intertwined, and

subjugated lives of rural Nigerian women.

There are three themes drawn from the data, and they are analyzed in this chapter. The

first theme focuses on rural Nigerian women’s understandings of empowerment and why they

held those understandings. This was also contrasted with men’s ideas. Though both women and

men hold the same meaning for empowerment, they have different reasons underlying their

meanings.

The second theme focuses on how patriarchal structures shape the actions of men and

women, society, traditions and institutions of the state and local governments in their responses

to the grassroots empowerment program in Ogotun Ekiti. This theme provides a macro response

to the questions emanating from the first theme of why women would want money as

empowerment. I examine the various ways in which patriarchy manifests itself to oppress these

women.

The most fascinating part of this study to me was the monumental self-help efforts in

which these women engaged to ameliorate the hardships of a patriarchal culture and masculine

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domination which the national, state and local governments, and non-government organizations

failed to abate. This is the third theme.

Theme One: Empowerment is money:

There is empowerment when everybody sells all the mats and

we collect money instantly to take care of our dire needs.

(Rose, individual interview, May 27, 2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

My opening question for women and men was,

Could you please ma / sir, tell me what you understand by women’s empowerment?

When a woman is enhanced financially so that she is able to cater for her

children and for herself, and she is able to stand tall in the society among

her equals.

(Sade, individual interview, May 30, 2019 at Ilawe Ekiti).

locally like this, women need money

(Debby, individual interview, May 27, 2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

what else can be used to empower people other than money? ‘it is only

money’

(Julius, individual interview, May 23, 2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

The four responses above are typical of the 20 interview respondents to the questions

about their understanding of the meaning of empowerment. The first quote was from Rose who

is a 78-year-old woman. She still engages in farming and business.

The next quote was from Sade, a woman in her late forty years, who is a deputy director

at the local government headquarters office at Ilawe –Ekiti. Sade has a bachelor’s degree and is

married with children. The third quote is from Debby, a typical rural Nigerian woman, who

learned to weave mats at very tender age. She was sponsored by her mother with the proceeds of

the mats and she obtained her teacher’s training certification. She also took on mat weaving,

even after she became a local teacher to make extra money to support her children’s education.

The fourth quote is the response of Julius, a 51-year-old man, married, a college graduate who

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farmed with livestock, and who expressed his understanding of empowerment based on his

experiences. The above four quotes are representatives of the meanings and understandings

these rural people hold about empowerment.

With these initial responses, I became more curious to know why this group of people

who are culturally bound and speak in the same local Ekiti dialect hold this idea about

empowerment. As a critical scholar and a qualitative researcher, the meaning associated with

this phenomenon by these women and men from Ogotun Ekiti is very key to this research study

as it helps to understand their social existence and provides justification of their social actions

(Creswell, 2007; Denzin &Lincoln, 2005). More so, interrogating grassroots empowerment

programs should be based on cultural, social, political, and religious understandings of the

community dwellers and most importantly, the women who are supposed to be served by these

programs (Wesley & Dublon, 2015).

There are many theoretical perceptions, descriptions and views about empowerment from

many extant literatures such as Kabeer, (2010), Metcalfe, (2011), Chen et al (2007), Fatile, et al,

(2017), Arun, (2010), and I discussed these in chapter two. These understandings mostly

revolve around having access to quality education and training, political seats, inheritance rights,

reproductive and maternal health, abolishment of glass ceilings at places of work and vocational

skills, and economic and technological trainings by those who have it (government, nonprofit

organizations and international communities) to those people perceived poor by certain

parameters of the some international standards. As much as those theoretical perceptions,

descriptions and views about empowerment are true for certain groups of women, the women in

Ogotun are not desirous of any of these because the understandings they hold about

empowerment are very contextual and have been justified by their culture, life experiences and

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the needs of daily life that confront them most (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Their understanding

of empowerment is having money in their hands to take care of their needs and that of their

children. They want to be able to cater for their home.

When a woman is enhanced financially so that she is able to cater for her

children and for herself.

(Sade, individual interview, May 30, 2019 at Ilawe Ekiti).

Why is Empowerment only money?

Women participants in this research believe and desire their empowerment to be money

and they shared their experiences with me why it was so. Likewise, the men in Ogotun agree

that women are disempowered, and they need money as empowerment, however, their reasons

for requesting money as empowerment for women are different from the reasons why women

want money for empowerment. I discussed their responses under different categories of

patriarchal culture in theme two with some examples to nuance their experiences of how

patriarchy has kept women in subservient position. However, colonization seems to be the stamp

of authority that gave men the power to re-inscribe patriarchy in this present society. Therefore, I

provide basis to understand how colonialism had reinforced the dynamics of patriarchism in the

rural communities of Nigeria.

Colonialism in Patriarchy:

That is the power given to them (men).

(Debby, individual interview, May 27,2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

When I heard this quote, I kept asking myself (which I am still doing?) a myriad of

questions and noted in my memo that: who gave the power? Why? To do what? When? How?

Why not the women? The socio-political systems and institutions are designed for men to

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maintain supremacy above women and make them consider themselves weak (hooks,2004). This

is what the colonists did.

Colonialization completely collapsed the thin structures that women held on to in the

precolonial regimes in Nigeria, when they shared a little bit of the power with men. The

incursion of the British colonists had a significant effect on those existing power and gender

relationships of the precolonial era. It stripped women of the roles and power they had before

colonization. The British colonists came with the practice of isolating women from socio-

economic and political activities. In Nigeria and other African communities, women were

removed from public and political domains and confined solely to their homes. African men

were given access to western education for ease of communication and to assist with the British

colonial administration; thus, African men became clerks, teachers, mission workers, cooks, and

took other roles in the offices. This further established class structure as men became the new

working and lower middle class, but women were not allowed to work (Adu 2013; Udodinma,

2013). This action further reduced the status of women, because men earned money from work

while women could not work and had to rely on men for money. Women thus began to carry the

extra burden of patriarchy due to marginalization and segregation by colonialism.

Theme Two: Patriarchal Culture:

The experiences of the women in this research show that they suffer under the burden of

patriarchy. Nigeria’s patriarchal culture shapes men’s attitude to treat women like property

rather than humans. This dominant character exhibited by these rural men in Ogotun to maintain

supremacy above these rural women has become a way of life for these women. The patterns of

patriarchal oppression discussed in the literature review is hereby supported by the experiences

of these rural women. It manifests in their marriages, homes, childbearing and rearing, local

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economics and in community practices, religion and local government institutions. These are

discussed in the following sections.

Patriarchy in Child Rearing and Home Responsibilities:

Many rural Nigerian men abandon women whom they marry to fend for themselves and

their children. Men have little or no commitment to their wives’ well-being. Lydia, who is the

wife of an Ogotun traditional ruler, a leader in the town and a mother, explained: Other women

also confirmed this at different times.

when a child needs thirty naira(0.098USD) in school the man (father) will

direct the request to the woman (mother of the child) to pay 20

naira(0.065USD) out of it, while he (father) pays the

10naira(0.033USD),it is a man that is responsible( thoughtful about

family) that will pay the 10naira.

Lydia meant that only a good man will be willing to pay the ten naira; most men would not pay

anything at all although rural men tend to make more money than rural women.

Rural Nigerian men’s cultural belief is that women are responsible for everything that

relates to children. Nigerian women have been socially constructed as child bearer and child

nurturer. She is expected to bear children after marriage at all cost, and she is blamed for the

failure or delay having children. She is further oppressed in the situation when she does not bear

a male child. In African society, the more children a woman gives birth to, the more respect she

has, and she is even more respected for having male children (Opara, 2005). Because of this

cultural belief, every married woman desire to have male children or at least many children.

There is still considerable humiliation and derogatory treatments given to both urban and rural

women who do not bear children, and culturally they are labelled, and most times they are forced

out of marriage (Adu, 2013). Since women are culturally and biologically attached to children,

men leave the responsibilities of raising and caring the children to women. Consequently, every

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woman works hard to make sure they nurture their children in all areas of life, including their

feeding, clothing, attending to their wellness, and ensuring that they are educated at school until

the children are grown. If the children do not become prosperous in their academic career or

vocational training, the mother will be blamed for the misfortunes of such children. To avoid

this, women carry this burden and work hard to make sure they do all they can to nurture the

children since the man has no stake in the children’s lives.

Lydia said that men usually expressed their traditional selfish belief and would normally

say: “people would only know the mother of a successful child and no one bothers to know the

father, so let the women carry the responsibilities of nurturing of the child”. Jimmy, talking from

his own personal experience as a boy raised in the traditional manner, he said:

if a woman failed to carry out ‘her responsibilities on her children’, she

will be the one to (bear the brunt) blame for the child’s failure and

misfortune

(Jimmy, individual interview, 23 May, 2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

Jimmy is a young married man, a graduate student, and he assisted me with the women’s

attendance, dialect explanations and geography of the town. He interjected at a point to share his

experience when he listened to the conversations. He explained how much his mother labored to

single handedly bear the cost of education of himself and other siblings. Debby, remarked at

another time, that the burdens women carry are too much, because they work night and day and

that women age so quickly and some would die sooner than expected. This makes my heart so

weak because of the experiences of these women as each of them gave narrations in the focus

group discussion. Examples of such sentiments included “the era of slavery has not ended for

women”. The eight women in the focus group agreed with this because of their experiences with

their husbands. I could feel patriarchy, almost like touching it. The following are examples of

patriarchy at work.

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Women work so hard planting yams on the men’s farms, but men do not give them

enough food items to cook for their children. Rather a man cuts a piece of yam daily for the

woman to prepare for the man to eat as pounded yam; the woman will still provide the sauce.

The sauce, which most times costs a lot of money and efforts to prepare, is usually a local gravy

made from spinach mixed with melon or okra added to fish or beef pepper stew and local

ingredients, and is cooked in palm oil and forms into a rich greenish red sauce. This gravy costs

rural women money and time and effort for the male partner.

In another account, the man does not make any provision for food and does not give the

woman money to purchase food items either for the children or herself. If the man comes home

asking for food and the woman delays, he may resort to physical and or other verbal and

emotional abuses.

Lydia told me of her sister who is a teacher and the husband as well. The man would

leave her with the house chores, to care for the children and feed the family with her own

income. The man would not respond to any need of the family and will still ask her for food and

whenever she refuses to make this provision for the man, he drives her outside the house with

violent assaults. Lydia, however, advised her sister to switch roles since the husband was not

ready to provide for the family and this was always causing physical abuse and troubles. She

should then become the bread winner. She says that some women have taken it as their

responsibility to feed both the man and their shared children. In order to have peace, she should

become the breadwinner and feed the man with her resources, even though both are teachers in

schools. Lydia said, “some men are not changed by education they possess”. This confirms that

patriarchal practices are not limited to uneducated people; it is simply entrenched into the fabric

of the society. However, Debby holds a contrary view to this when she said that “in a home

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where both the man and woman are educated, then, there would be an agreement”. This is her

own experience as a teacher; she must have enjoyed this with her partner, unlike Lydia’s sister.

But this is an exception to the majority of the stories.

“Men hate their children and their mothers” was another statement that pierced my heart

this was said by Vicky in another interview at the local government office at Ilawe. Vicky came

into the room as I was concluding an interview session with Sade (a respondent). Vicky is

believed to be a top official at the local council, although she declined to give more details about

her office, but she was corporately dressed and commanded the respect as a senior government

official in the office. My observation of her conduct within the 40 to 50 minutes I was observing

there suggested that she is a high-ranking officer of the council. She appeared to be a university

graduate. She spoke fluently in the English language with a bitter expression and in rage stated

that “men hate their children and their mothers as well”. She further explained that the way men

respond to the needs of their children and how they treat their wives is very bad and heartless.

She told me that men would not pay the children’s school fees nor buy them supplies for schools

and task women who make little or no money to carry out these responsibilities because these

men have the cultural belief and practice that women are responsible for the upkeep of children.

Unfortunately, most schools are not free, both in the public and private realm in Nigeria; where

the tuition is free there are often other mandatory high fees to pay and supplies are not usually

free. Therefore, children must buy and pay for school fees mostly. Vicky said that when this

request comes from the children, the father quickly says, “go and meet your mother’’.

According to her, “men prefer to spend their money on themselves” This sentiment is in line

with Sade, an earlier respondent on the same subject when she said that;

Some men, they just kind of, you know, love themselves, they love to be,

you know, this kind of selfishness in them, there are some men “wan sope

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ki omo to je ogun awon ati je ogbon (Before a child gets twenty things

from them, they would have made good use of thirty for themselves).

Men spend their money on frivolous things… you see them at beer

parlor(club) wasting their resources and forget the care of their family

(Sade, individual interview, May 30, 2019 at Ilawe Ekiti).

Patriarchy in Marriage Contract:

The pre-colonial Nigerian marriage was mostly polygamous, and families lived in

communities of extended families (Ako- Nai, 2013). Men prided themselves in having multiple

women as partners, while women were forbidden by culture and traditions from having more

than one husband. This practice is still found in most rural places. When the men have more than

two wives in some cases, the patriarchal oppressive situation is worse for women in such

polygamous marriages. they hardly get any support for the children or themselves from the

father since he has many wives; then it becomes the responsibility of each mother- the wives in

such marriage, to care for her own children born to this man with multiple wives. That was the

case of a young man (Jimmy) who assisted in the research field. He told me his experience that

his mother and other wives had to bear the burden of raising and caring for each child they gave

birth to and still provide whatever the husband demanded; otherwise, culturally, women who do

not comply, are labelled a rebel and can be divorced. Men have the option to switch to another

woman because the tradition allows him to have many wives. So, each woman works to support

his many children and the man. All these places much burden on women as home makers and

keepers to look for money to raise and feed the children (Adu, 2013). Sade told me a pathetic

story of what happened to a woman in her neighborhood some time ago.

There was a woman at Emure (a town in Ekiti State) then, she was selling

Akara (bean cake). With that akara, she sent her three children to

university and they all graduated. Her husband chased her out of the house

and brought in another woman. The woman had no place to go with her

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children; she begged for a small kiosk in another neighborhood which was

close to my place and she was selling the bean cakes there

(Sade, individual interview, May 30, 2019 at Ilawe Ekiti).

.

The question that comes to me is why do rural Nigerian women keep themselves in such

situations with men? This may be because of the regard they have for the traditions of the

society. More so, older women and community leaders, families and other civil institutions also

reproduce the oppression of women, sometimes women themselves are part of the oppression,

since having a husband is so important to every woman, irrespective of the circumstances. This

is confirmed when Lydia, who is the head of women in Ogotun and wife of the king (traditional

ruler of the town), said that “a woman without husband is just a mere woman and such a woman

is without respect or if she divorces her husband, she becomes a cast out in the society”.

Lydia is a strong proponent of women enduring all hardships and playing the docile part

to keep peace at home. She shares the doctrines of snail sense feminism. She maintains that no

home or marriage is perfect; hence, everyone should develop a coping strategy. Further, she

leaned more on the Christian religion in which women are taught to be submissive to men.

Therefore, women in any of these circumstances must remain under the burden, this is further

discussed below.

Patriarchy in Home Building:

Since marriage is the major way to construct a home and family in Nigeria, and everyone

respects family decisions and ties, many men in rural regions usually would marry out of the

“need” for someone to complete domestic chores and run their business errands. It is also a

cultural requirement and a society norm for a woman of marriageable age to be able to complete

many domestic responsibilities so as to be a resourceful wife for the husband. While marriages

are expected to be about love between the couples, it is not so necessarily. It about how

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serviceable in the domestic realm, including farm work, a woman is, and her readiness to bear

and nurture children at home. A respondent has this to say about men and loving their spouses.

“Men do not have love for women; how can that happen when he has five to six wives” (Lydia,

May 27,2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

Women have specific codes of conduct in regards what they can do or not do. This

further leaves women without any other option than to stay with the oppression of men. The

family system reproduces patriarchy and encourages the domination of men. As an insider to this

culture, I know families put pressure on a newly married woman to give birth within the first

year of marriage. The woman’s rights about reproduction are limited and most times subjected

to the decision of the extended family.

Furthermore, it is cultural practice in family that a woman’s place is in the kitchen,

whatever her status. This informs many family decisions such as investing in a girl’s education

since her future is in the kitchen, and it also serves to keep boys away from the kitchen. The

family’s expectations are that women's priority is to be in the kitchen and unfortunately this

patriarchal tradition has become a norm accepted by women. A move against this is regarded as

a violation of the norms (Adu, 2013). An example of this is found in a social response to a

woman, Ms. Aisha Al-Hassan, who contested a governorship seat of a state in Nigeria in 2015

and lost. The commentator said, “it would be a disaster to have a female governor, Because the

place of women is in the kitchen” (Vanguard Newspaper Nigeria, November 11, 2015). Not long

ago, the sitting president in Nigeria, Muhammed Buhari, said in a television interview that his

wife has nothing to do with politics, but her place is in his bedroom and the ‘other’ room

(kitchen). This was widely attacked and condemned by international and local commentators for

dismissing women in this age. This was also confirmed during the data collection by Ade, a man

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who was my research guide in the field. He shared his experience of what happened in his home

after his marriage. Sammy who is a younger brother to Ade, was visiting with Ade and his wife

shortly after their marriage. Ade said:

When Sammy first came to our house ...when I was newly married, he saw

me washing plates inside the kitchen, he was mad. He said something must

be wrong with me that if my dad heard that I tried this, he will disown me

(Ade, individual interview, May 27, 2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

Ade was my guide to the village during the research. He is a native of the village and a

professor at the State University and knows the dynamics of the town and understands

navigating through to the women. His quote is an example of the practice and belief of what

families hold about women and men. My professor friend was seen by his relations who came

visiting as violating the societal norm and way of life in the family. Sammy (an unmarried

brother to my professor friend) threatens that if their father should not know that he is helping

to do the dishes in the kitchen, he would be disowned because this is a reflection on the

family’s masculinity. There is no time and avenue created for men to support women for the

heavy burden of domestic work and family expectations. Women are not seen to belong to the

category of humans that need quality lives. Women are not given much regard in family

settings. For instance, in the occurrence of the death of the father in the family which usually is

the older man referred to as the family head, the eldest son takes over the management of the

home and properties no matter his age, instead of the wife of the late man. In the event that

there is no male child, a male relative of the deceased man takes over the household; in some

cultures, the male relative also inherits the wife (Adu, 2013). This is how much disdain women

are accorded in families.

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Patriarchy in the Role of Government in the Administration of Grassroots Empowerment:

Generally, the response to grassroots empowerment programs or initiatives by the

government in Ogotun is influenced by the patriarchal culture embedded in the society.

Government structures are male dominated, and this is reflected in the importance, or rather lack

of attention they give to women’s issues. Personally, the experiences of women in relation to

government administration seems very surprising. I would have expected the women to have

bitter experiences with the previous military government because of their dictatorial, inhumane

and high handedness. My assumption was that this military government would not support

women’s empowerment because the Nigeria military is so masculine in structure; but this was

not so in practice. The following stories prove otherwise.

The experience of women and men at Ogotun revealed that the role of government has

diminished in supporting grassroots empowerment programs since the rule of civilian

government in 1999. According to Lydia, “Since the advent of civilian government, we saw

nothing”. She meant that there is no significant impact of the civilian government on women’s

empowerment programs compared to the military government. Lydia, who is the head of the

women in Ogotun, shared her memories of women’s empowerment initiatives in the states

organized by the military government. She said before Ekiti state was created from Ondo state,

the Ondo State was under military rule between 1988 and 1990, and Navy Commodore Bode

George was the governor of Ondo State before the creation of Ekiti State in 1996. She said:

It was during the regime of Bode George (state Governor)

The Ondo state government, through another nongovernmental

organization (Country Women Association of Nigeria (COWAN)) were

empowering women. They were giving loans to women then, though they

were unable to do nothing more than that.

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The women were given loans to execute their mat weaving business, and she further told

me how the loans were deployed through cooperatives societies. Women were organized into

cooperative societies with some functionaries who served as their guarantors or collateral holders

for the loans. The guarantors not only served as collateral for the loan repayment but also to

ensure that the women used the money for the appropriate purposes because their husbands

sometimes forcefully take the money from the women.

we have been in cooperatives and we all have our certificates because if

you did not have your certificate you will not be loaned, there won't be

loan for you, because they believe that money loaned to people

individually, some people may use it for their own welfare, some may not

want to pay it back, but in that cooperatives we will have guarantors, if

you don’t want to pay the money back, your guarantor would be held

responsible while your guarantor will hold you responsible

(Lydia, individual interview May 27,2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

Her response made me wonder if the women do defraud, but I understand now that

sometimes the spouses of these women collect such money by force or in a subtle way to use for

their own purposes, thereby plunging the women into debt and hurting their new businesses.

Lydia said from her experience that;

some men will collect that money(loan) from their wives, and it is the

woman that will find a means to work in order to repay the money,

they(men) will not pay it

(Lydia, Focus Group Discussant, May 27,2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

These practices created the need for guarantors to safeguard the women whose husbands

may likely collect the money from them as part of oppression. These guarantors are chosen from

men and women who are public office holders such as senior government officials, community

leaders and chiefs, church or mosque leaders and senior educators, who are considered reputable

citizens of the society.

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While I was reviewing the documents of a local cooperative society, I found the name of

the Ogotun women’ cooperative society to be Egbe Iwajowa and the loan documents dated 1990

May 10th. The loaning bank was the United Bank of Africa at Akure, the Ondo State capital city.

I saw how small the amounts of money were that the women requested and that were approved

by the organization (COWAN). I asked the leader why the women requested such a small

amount considering the enormous financial responsibilities they deal with. “A sum of one

thousand five hundred Naira is meant for every member of the cooperative to work on our mats

business”. It was 5.51 USD to 1 Nigeria Naira in 1990, so N1,500 was 272.2 USD then, but

$4.16 with the present-day exchange rate. The documents showed that the money was returned.

Few of the beneficiaries of the loans were present in the focus group discussion session that

afternoon. Lydia, the head of the women, confirmed the amount I saw on the document that was

collected for all the women and later distributed among them according to what each woman

would need, and I saw the list of names and bank tellers.

Lydia said the situation is no more since the civilian government has been ruling the

nation starting in 1999. The civilian government chose to give money to selected women who

belong to their political party. Lydia said they won’t give money either as a means of

empowerment or as loan to everybody. “The government gives money only to those women that

belong to their political ruling party; those are the people that gets the money”. The people of

the state are polarized along political affiliation and benefits only come to those who belong to

the ruling party. The current ruling party, All Progressive Congress (APC), is headed by a Hausa

Fulani ethnic member and a Muslim, with a Yoruba ethnic and a Christian as vice; both are men.

The main opposition party, People’s Democratic Party (PDP), was last headed by a Hausa,

Muslim with an Igbo Christian vice. Political choices in Nigeria does not focus on party

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ideologies but on which party will benefit an individual more. Though religion and tribal

influence play a major role in party formation, the followers are more about benefits they will

derive from an individual leading the party or from the party in general, because politicians and

party leaders woo votes with money. Another woman confirming this position said that:

it is only those that are involved in politics that can obtain something from

government. Those that are closer to them. Because most of the times,

some politicians do gather women from the community and promised that

they want to empower them. The politicians will collect their names and

collect money with those names. The money will be given to those that

are different from the names they have collected…So it is only those that

are closer to them that will receive something (money) from them

(Debby, individual interview, May 27, 2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

Because of reasons like the above, some women, who are desperate to get money, got

involved in the corrupt deeds of the political party. To obtain the small amount given by the

political party, they are made to follow the party’s agenda and attend their activities, which takes

them away from their mat weaving. However, all the women who spoke with me refused to be

involved in any political party and did not get money from the political party. Lydia told me that

for her status as the wife of the king, she could not belong to any political party, because it could

cause division in the community she serves or blur her sense of commitment to deliver the right

judgment in case of disputes.

I got more insight about this when I asked a man on the street of Ogotun about the role of

government in women’s empowerment in the community. He acknowledged that there is an

empowerment drive for women, but that all of it was a waste of time and resources. He agreed

with Lydia that there is nothing done by the national government. Julius said. “There is no

empowerment that the government is doing”. He further explained that the process of

empowerment is irrelevant to the needs and understandings of the people.

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all the empowerment that was done by the government was like wasting

time, because the government will be calling them to seminars, this and

that

(Julius, individual interview, May 23, 2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

His belief that was shared previously was that only money is empowerment, so seminars

and any other gathering that would not translate to money for the women to meet their needs was

a waste of their time. He said sometimes when there is money involved, the process of collecting

such money is cumbersome for women. They would have to travel, provide so many documents,

and appear before different sets of people many times before the money is given out. Most times

they would have spent two thirds of the money on the processing and travels, so there is little left

for the purpose which would not give them the gains they wanted. He saw these as a waste of

time. This is far different from the easy loan systems facilitated under the military administration

through cooperative societies. Julius said:

the fifty thousand they proposed to give them as empowerment would be

spent on the processing of getting the money for empowerment, so there

is no empowerment that the government is doing, when they empower

someone, you have almost spent more than you want to be given, so there

is nothing that the government is doing

(Julius, individual interview, May 23, 2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

This was confirmed at another interview session with the deputy director of the

community development department at the local government office on how they carry out their

activities:

they (representative of the State government) will invite the community

department director, to present the list of twenty women and it should cut

across the three towns in the local government, the government wants to

give them assistance, financial assistance or loan. When that is done, such

nominee will go directly to Ado Ekiti (State capital) to get their loans, not

coming here (local government office), they will process all their forms,

they will take them to Ado Ekiti at the Bank which they will transact the

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business; they will open the account and do it there (Jide, Focus Group

Discussant , May 30, 2019 at Ilawe Ekiti).

This is considered cumbersome for the rural women to spend more money from their

little resources and spend time as well. This, he thought, could have been done through the local

government office which has the function but because of the partisanship involved, the state

government is not ready with the process. More so, during the focus group discussion, the

women at Ogotun said the government abandoned the promotion of their crafts and destroyed the

legacy that the military administration gave them about empowering them through their mat

weaving. It is sad to note that military government could be more responsive to women’s need

than ‘the government of the people’.

In their stories, the Ogotun women said the military government built a center for

empowerment for them in their community, where they go to weave mats. They were paid

money for the mats and sometimes the mats were bought at the center and were used to make

other products. This center was called “Better Life for Rural Women” and was equipped and

staffed by the local government. The Center used different machines to produce bags, table

mats, covers, folders and others household materials from the woven mats. Better Life for Rural

Women was a Maryam Babangida (wife of former military president) initiative to provide

empowerment for rural women in Nigeria in 1987. She proposed this at the grassroots level

hence its name, rural women. This is done through agriculture and cottage industries like the mat

weaving in Ogotun. The center in Ogotun thrived under the military rule and a little after then,

according to the women. The women confirmed that the government and the women were all

making profit from the center:

before it (Better Life for Rural Women Training Center) was sold, budget

is being prepared every year. If you see the millions of Naira, they bring

out of the center but now it has been sold

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(Rose, Focus Group Discussant, May 27, 2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

local Government council owns the place … they employed people there

working and paying them. They were sowing bags and everything

(Tam, Focus Group Discussant, May 27, 2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

Unfortunately, the women lamented the sale of the center after it has been abandoned for

years under civilian rule.

the Better Life for Rural Women (training center) has been sold by the

government… Ah! We people working there didn’t understand.

Government from council owns the place and what pleases an owner, he

will do with what he has. They were the ones that sold their property.

Even, we people working there were not informed when the council sold

it (Rose, Focus Group Discussant, May 27, 2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

However, I was so curious to know why government response to rural women’s

empowerment is poor and slow. The deputy director at the local government in charge of

community development at Ilawe said that:

lack of money for the maintenance of things can never allow the

regular functioning of that place. (Better Life for Rural Women,

Training center, Ogotun Ekiti).

He explained in his response why there was a lack of funds.

due to the system of government now, the local government allocation is

not coming directly; everything is under the supervision of His Excellency

(state governor) and every property of the local government is directly

owned by the state

(Jide, Focus Group Discussant, May 27, 2019 at Ilawe Ekiti).

A respondent said that the local government started a program to train some women on

soft skills in another town, but this did not last for long either. They trained women on hair

dressing, dressmaking and making confectionaries. The council bought a few equipment pieces

they could afford for these women as a startup for going into business with what they learned.

But due to politicking and lack of funds, these initiatives could not be sustained. “lack of money

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for the maintenance of things can never allow the regular functioning... and no autonomy by the

local government…” Jide. This deputy director of the local government community development

office said that financial support is done by a random pick of a specified number of women from

the towns in the local government area and at the directives of the state government.

all what I know, if there is going to be financial assistance, it will come

through the state, to the local, specifically. They will invite the community

department director: please get us the list of twenty women and it should

cut across the three towns in the local government, the government wants

to give them assistance, financial assistance

(Jide, Focus Group Discussant, May 27, 2019 at Ilawe Ekiti).

Unfortunately, in all these, women are at the receiving end of all the power playing. I

could see the dynamics of patriarchy in the government administration of funds and development

strategies. I noted while coding that if it were men that needed assistance, there would be a

policy to enforce the disbursement of funds, or an unofficial way to make the funds or

empowerment accessible to men.

Patriarchy in Traditions:

In this section I analyze the role of culture and tradition in the empowerment of women

at the grassroots level at Ogotun by considering the attitude of men towards women. Ogotun

men are a representation of Nigerian men and African men, who enjoy the power and privileges

of patriarchy. They wield this power through their cultural and traditional authority. They use

women in a derogatory way since the culture allows it by socially constructing boundaries for

both men and women which benefits men. The assigned role of women in Africa is subordinate

to the role of men. For instance, under the traditional patrilineal system, which has influenced the

present society, women are not allowed to make decisions at home, because Africans mostly live

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in homesteads under the authority of a male family head who makes all decisions (Adu, 2013).

This aligns with Debby’s response in the quote below.

The father is the landlord {(sic) way to talk about a man who gives

orders on everything, these are the characteristics of most men} and the

all in all in the house. Anything that he says is the final, so they don’t

listen to advice of women as such. They will want them to know that

they are the leader of that family. So, they don’t even call women into

their decisions

(Debby, individual interview, May 27, 2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

Debby, from how she answered my demographic questions appears to me as a very hardworking

and active married woman in her late 30 years, who teaches at the local high school in the town

and leads the girls to weave mats. She learned to weave mats as a little child and she still weaves

mats for money to augment her teaching job. She belongs to a cooperative society which will be

discussed later in this analysis. She provides insightful comments about how male dominance is

largely contributing to the increasing poverty level of women. She remarked that the young men

growing up in this age are not different from the older generation. She said that: “There are still

some like that, that still have their father’s character in them. There are some that if his wife

talks, will say, “Who called you to it?”. This cultural practice bars women from decision making

at home and denies them a voice and choice at the community level. Consequently,

empowerment policies are not given the credence they ought to have to benefit women.

Patriarchy in Nigeria regards women’s reasoning as non-constructive compared to men’s and

their advice is dismissed always (Adu, 2013.). This could explain why these women’s voices

were not sought in the decision the local government made when they sold the mat weaving

empowerment center in Ogotun. The women lamented that they were not informed when it was

closed and sold.

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In using the term “landlord”, Debby describes an important way that men oppress women

in rural Nigeria. A landlord depicts men as economic oppressor who owns the property and rents

to women in exchange for money and other benefits. In a literal way a landlord would not share

his profit or be responsible for the welfare of his tenants and would always be demanding rent.

The women in the study have the same stories about men. The landlord, most times, relates with

tenants under some stringent conditions that are very tough and a heavy burden. The women

hardly get any financial support from their husbands as discussed, and men deny them

opportunities to do their business. Men do not provide enough food and sometimes none; rather

they make women work on the men’s farms taking it as the men’s traditional right as the owners

of women. These women are sometimes kicked out of the house because the men felt women are

not giving them their expectations. The men as landlord are capitalists, who are always interested

in profits and benefit from their properties or goods. Women culturally are regarded by men as

goods, and they use them as such in terms of production of food, children, sex and care for the

man.

Debby further confirmed this in her response that:

Men don’t want their wives to work and earn money for themselves.

Rather men force women to follow them always to their (men) own farm

and work for them. She is most times not allowed to learn any skills or use

her skills to make a living for herself to make her life better. The women

are subjected to such conditions that whenever she needs money, she will

have to beg, beg and beg the man until he will give it to her. That is the

type of woman the man and society/ tradition regard as a responsible

(good) wife

(Debby, individual interview, May 27, 2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

Debby believes that men do not want the empowerment programs for women.

In another interview Sade reiterated this condition that:

some men because of their ego… certain percentage of men in the society

because they prefer to put their wives under them (oppress), they deny

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women from having means of income or liberty to spend at their own. So

that the woman will be coming anytime she needs something, she should

be coming to plead but that is not the right thing

(Sade, individual interview, May 30, 2019 at Ilawe Ekiti).

She said that whenever such women asked for money

they will give her the money but they sha(sic) just want, to be the lord over

women which shouldn’t be, but some wise men, some wise men in the

society, they allow their wives to be empowered (source of income and

use it at will)

(Sade, individual interview, May 30, 2019 at Ilawe Ekiti).

At another time of conversation Lydia said:

There is no man that wants his wife to be self-independent to a point that

whenever she wants to buy Garri (local food made from cassava roots) and

she buys it without begging money from the husband. Men don’t want

that. If any man said they want their wives independent, they just say it

casually, they don’t really mean it. They do not want their wives to have

freedom; neither do they want woman to be sole controller of a business,

they do not want it… Because they think that if the woman can finance

herself, it may lead to pride.

I then asked a clarifying question: Are women proud when they are in charge? She

answered that;

It is not like that oooo, it is not like that. But that is how men think, so

they don’t want a woman to be independent especially on financial….

things, they don’t want (Lydia, personal communication, May 23,2019 at

Ogotun Ekiti).

Generally, in Africa, men use cultural practices as social, psychological, political, and

emotional weapons that make women see themselves as weak objects of subordination and fear

and turn women to victims (Idowu, 2013). This is expressed by Lydia: “a woman that failed to

yield to her husband’s instruction would be termed as a rebel” Lydia, personal interview, May

23, 2019 at Ogotun).

This makes women comply with the hard rules set by men which are weapons of

subordination. In her conversation with me, Lydia told me of the story of a woman that was a

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victim of this subordination and oppression. Being a women leader, she is privy to these kinds of

stories.

There was a woman, she is dead now, fondly called yeye alate loke mi,

Ige’s wife. That woman told me that whenever she wanted to go the market

at Otun (a distant town) in order to buy baby carriers (A special strong

cloth made into thick wrappers of many colors and woven into patterns to

back babies by nursing mothers) she said it was that same day that her

husband will forcefully demand her to follow him to the farm. The woman

would always suspend her plans to go to the market and follow the man to

the farm, she said, because if she did not go to the farm as demanded, she

won’t be allowed into the house again (Lydia, personal communication,

May 23,2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

Because the tradition and culture have been entrenched in the lives of these women, they

live with the fear of the consequences of rejecting this oppression. For example, Nigerian society

has constructed marriage for women as a mark of recognition, so women do everything to remain

within their marriage even if it is very oppressive. Lydia confirmed the social construct around

marriage:

“If there should be a woman without a husband, such woman is a mere

woman, without respect” (Lydia, individual interview, May 23, 2019).

More so, a single mother who is not widowed is not acceptable in the

society since she did not stay in the marriage.

Lydia said the child born in this type of arrangement will be embarrassed

anywhere, including with school mates. She told me that “without a husband, her child

would be embarrassed” (Lydia, individual interview, May 23, 2019). Such a child is

hesitant to mix and play with friends and family. The child is forced to keep asking

their mother about the whereabouts of their father. Such is the situation women are put

within these patriarchal traditions

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Lydia confirmed that “it is not every woman that you see with their husband that is

pleased to be there and happy in the marriage, but they live and remain in the marriage just to

keep within the ambience of the traditions”. She said that “the pride of a woman is the husband”,

so this further tie this woman in the loop of culture bound to men. Society has constructed all

these assumptions about women in marriage, and these have been passed down from many

generations reproducing the oppression. The women in the focus group all attest to this following

quote. In rural Nigeria once a woman is married, she loses her position as a child in the family,

and she is forced to stay in their marriage, whether good or bad.

our parents keep drumming (telling us always loud and clear like drums)

into our ears that your seat has been burnt in this house ooooo, you cannot

come back’. This is what our parents told us. This technically means that

there is no room to accommodate you if you quit your husband, so you

better stay there and cope with whatever comes out of the marriage (Lydia,

individual interview, May 23, 2019).

As Nigeria urbanizes and westernizes, this situation is fast declining. Urban women can

make alternative plans like getting work to sustain themselves or staying with friends or

colleagues or seeking assistance elsewhere, but in rural regions, which is the focus of this study,

this is not yet obtainable.

The tradition, culture and systems are designed to benefit men and leave women to be at

the mercy of men. Tradition demands that women must have a man as head, and she must bear

children. This belief is similar to the Motherism theory in popular African feminism which

alludes to this traditional recognition of women as child bearers and nurturers. Empowerment is

not a priority to the men once they marry the woman; rather they wish their wives to perform

every traditional rite. The following quote was from a young man, Jimmy, the research attendant,

who shared the experience of his mother with me. Jimmy had this to say about his family:

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In our family, five of my siblings are age mates because we were born the

same time, but of different mothers, who are wives to my father. With the

multitude of the women present at a time, five women are pregnant.

Because when one woman is pregnant, the husband dropped her and goes

to another

(Jimmy, personal communication, May 27, 2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

The quest and efforts of the women are always truncated by the agenda of

men. Such are the issues that Lydia, the head of women, encounters with many women in

her group when planning a self-help project to alleviate their financial burdens. Women would

have to suspend their plans to follow their partners to do whatever they demanded from them.

More so, Lydia would have to support them to fulfil their partners’ wish to align with

the culture because they have to stay with the man or experience social exclusion.

when we say we have a project or meeting and a woman is

compelled by her husband that he has work for her, if she leaves

her husband’s work and goes to the cooperatives, don’t you know

that she is already gambling with her marriage?

This implies for no reason she cannot change the husband’s plans. And Lydia believes so

much that marriage should be intact no matter what the situation the woman is going through.

it is not everyone that you see with their husband are pleased to be

there” (Lydia, individual interview, May 23, 2019).

But it is more culturally and traditionally accepted to remain with a man

as the head.

Patriarchy in Religion:

The people of Ekiti are predominantly Christians and a few are Muslims, but the

traditional religions are fast disappearing due to Christianity being firmly established and

spreading rapidly. However, the two dominant religions do not have women in their leadership;

rather Nigerian Christianity encourages the practice of women’s submission and Islam practices

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segregation (Harris, 2012). Both religions give men more control over women, and they are very

critical in reinforcing patriarchy and the dominance of masculine culture (Omadjohwoefe, 2013).

These two dominant religions continue to shape the socio political and economic outlook of

Nigeria society.

All the participants in this study appear to be Christians as they back up some of their

discussion with Christian and Biblical statements. Their world views about their oppression and

the attitude of men are supported by Christian doctrines. For example,

“Men are the head of women, according to the command of God; the command is from

God” (Tam, Focus Group Discussant, May 27, 2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

Tam is a woman in her fifties; she is married and works extensively on her mat weaving

business and food farming to survive and raise her children. Tam’s claim is that women should

be submissive to men. This is doctrinal teachings of both Islamic and Christian faiths which have

shaped the thinking and ideologies of life lived by these rural women and it is very hard for

women to break through these boundaries set by religion. I took interest in knowing more about

this subject with these women to understand how it affects their situation. However, because

Lydia, who is a gate keeper, was present in many of the interactions and has access to all the

meetings, provided more insightful information on this subject.

Lydia’s responses are from lengthy and they represent multiple times of interaction,

including observations, focus groups and personal interviews. She told me that the Bible

establishes the way women should relate to men. She believes that women should show more of

the teachings of the Bible than men, because women are expected to be more religious than men.

Therefore, women should live a more religious life and should pray for men to have a change of

mind in living a good life. Lydia said, “We do pray collectively every month for our men so that

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those that have a haughty mind will be humbled by God”. Lydia told me that in the worship of

traditional religion, men are more oppressive than any other religion, according to the story of a

woman she told me. She alluded to the experiences of women who practiced occultism. It is

practiced undercover, and it is associated with ritual killings and the use of magical powers to

hypnotize victims. The men are always the shrouded voices that instruct women what to do in

these occults. Most times, women and children are made to serve their interests, to carry out their

religious duties, and to bring items used for sacrifices under threat; these rituals happen mostly

during the night. Many times, men make absurd demands on women and girls either about forced

marriage or deprivations of rights and sometimes abuse and loss of self-esteem and life plans.

This may take a toll on their victims, either for their lifetime or for a while. Lydia said;

Mama, as she was fondly called, was initiated into occultism by

her husband and she was bound by their occultist practices that

wastes lives and she could not live on her own will. She was

always at their beck and call in their service, she was deprived of

anything she would have wished in life

(Lydia, Focus Group Discussant, May 27, 2019).

Lydia said the mama warned them not to be lured into it. Women are lured and are

forced under traditional oath to serve in the occultist world as servants to their oracles and

forcefully marry the priests without their consent. This often deprives these women of the

opportunity to do anything meaningful for themselves because the religion makes them do

whatever the men in this religion want always.

Lydia believes, like other Christian women, that the Christian religion

helps them survive the effects of male abuse. She said:

if not for Christianity, that the blood of Jesus redeemed many of

our women, many of us would have been in the psychiatric

hospital (Lydia, individual interview, May 23, 2019).

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The women see religion as a solace to whatever they face in the society, but from their

various comments and acceptance of their faiths, it seems to me that they do not see how

patriarchy is manifested in religion. But they see the men outside of religion as the ones who

need prayers while they fail to see that men are the leaders and teachers in most religious circles,

and they teach submission. Religious teachings and practices, both Christian and occult,

reinforce patriarchy and the colonial agenda of the subordination of women. Participants claimed

that the Christian faith has worked well in their lives as many of them respect their religious faith

and they prefer not to talk much about it, because they regard it as sacred to them. However, all

have set the boundaries of subordination and inferiority for women, a boundary which women

claim that they want to keep, and they do not cross.

The following quote is from a man at the local council confirming how men use the

religious teachings to intimidate and subjugate women;

At least, the essence of having a wife is to assist you……ehn, socially,

financially, whatever status she attains she is still your wife. Do you

understand? She is still bearing your name, do you understand? But some

women they will abuse the something… in term of egoism or whatever

with their husband forgetting that this man is still the head of the family

as the Bible established it. So that is just the thing (Bamidele, individual

interview, May 30,2019 at Ilawe Ekiti).

This quote reflects the domineering attitude of men supported by Christian faith. This is

used as a weapon to intimidate women to submission to men dominance. Bamidele believes that

women should live only as assistants to men. Men do not want women to have a personal goal or

ambition unless the ‘head’ of the family gives one. In the case where the woman attempts

empowerment, men take this as abuse and ego. All he wants is for the woman to remain silent,

unproductive and undeveloped ‘under’ the man who is the ‘head’.

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Patriarchy in Education:

Historically, in Nigeria, formal education was introduced by the British colonizers and

missionaries, but access was given mostly to men who benefited greatly from that ahead of

women (Adu, 2013, Fagunwa, 2014). It is a very strong colonial legacy that is still affecting the

society. Women have been struggling to gain access to education and its associated benefits

especially in rural areas. This has given more men the opportunities to acquire qualifications for

careers and highly paid jobs, and there is a glass ceiling at workplaces where women struggle to

get a place to work. This means most men have more financial benefits than women, and they

use this as a weapon of oppression, man would want woman to beg for money to use in their

family or for herself, Women cannot afford most necessities they needed as men would

comfortably get their luxurious wants satisfied, we have many women and girls who could not

afford sanitary towels and consequently could not function publicly, sometimes young women

are abused because of their financial needs by men, who have been able to get more money

because of the better qualification or training they were privilege to have. However, in urban

areas, significant improvement is recorded about girls’ enrollment and graduation rates in

secondary school and colleges, but the case is not the same in the rural areas.

Sade said this:

Some men will feel that once a woman is trained, she might not respect

them, the kind of respect that they want as a man. Some will feel that if

she dresses fine, she will look too good, maybe other men will be running

after her. Yes, some men have that opinion that other guys will want to

take her away…so they prefer her to be wretched and look tattered

(Sade, individual interview, May 30, 2019 at Ilawe Ekiti).

Her statement reflects that when women possess good educational qualifications, they

would surely be independent; however, these men would not want this to happen, so they keep

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women from gaining access to education or skills to gainful employment. Sade reinforced the

way men think about giving women the access to get an education. She said men do not want to

lose their cultural grip and control of women since if women acquire education, they will gain

some liberty from men’s hold.

The statement above confirms men’s selfish interest that contributes to women remaining

poor. I am of the opinion that the education men receive has not made any impact concerning

gender issues on them. Just as Lydia said earlier, “they (men) are not changed by education”.

The education that men receive has not delivered many of them from patriarchy; rather they use

education to continue to oppress. A vestige of colonialism.

Sade said that:

some men because of their ego, not all men, certain percentage of men in

the society because they prefer to put their wives under their control, that

the woman will be coming anytime she needs to buy something she should

be coming to plead for money but that is not the right thing. Few men,

some men prefer to empower their wives so that the burden of raising the

children, economy will not fall on them alone. You understand my points?

(Sade, individual interview, May 30, 2019 at Ilawe Ekiti).

Her statement compelled me to ask if these men were educated. She said they are mixed, that

means both educated and non-educated men, but the educated men do it with a purpose to exploit

and further subordinate women. She cited an example of an educated traditional ruler who married

a woman who just graduated from high school, desiring to move on with her life to college, but

with her marriage to the king, her dream was truncated.

The educated man, had a wife before he became a king, now married

another young woman as the second wife. The second wife was just a high

school graduate, a teenager at the time she was married, she has no college

degree or professional training. She was not empowered up till now

(meaning she was not given money to train herself or do business

independently to translate to her own independent money). The woman is

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just a full-time housewife caring for domestic chores and bearing children.

They have been married for about ten years now. … you can imagine the

kind of life, the kind of trauma the woman will be passing through

because, no matter how much, a man gives a woman, there is nothing like

her having own source of livelihood, whenever she needs ten Naira, she

cannot get it without coming to the man. Such woman gets insulted many

times by the man then cries, but if the woman has her own means of

livelihood, the man wouldn’t do that, if she goes to him and would not

respond positively, then she gets from her own purse (Sade, individual

interview, May 30, 2019 at Ilawe Ekiti).

These helps to explain why women’s understanding of empowerment is money. It is a survival

strategy to cope with the situation the society, systems and the institutions they believe have

assigned to them. Then it is more heart breaking to learn the position of men in this study, about

the reason’s women should be empowered.

Why Men want Money as Empowerment for Women?

There are some women that do not have paid employment but are always

at home, such women need to be empowered because they are idle (Jide,

individual interview, May 30, 2019 at Ilawe Ekiti).

When men said women needs money for empowerment. I made a deliberate step to ask

further what they personally thought about women’s empowerment. The quote above is Jide’s

response to that question. Jide, is a married man with a master’s degree; he is the deputy director

at the community development department at Ilawe Ekiti, which has the oversight of women’s

empowerment programs in the local council.

In this quote, he felt that stay at home moms are idle and that they need to work. He

ignores the domestic work women do. This is a patriarchal ideology that has become an

acceptable and normal discourse in Nigerian society and has been entrenched into the society and

reproduced through the system so that some men, like Jide, would not be affected by their level

of education or exposure as a high ranking official. Though he told me that he encouraged his

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wife to get a college degree, the transformation one would expect education to do for him is yet

to happen. This further explains the positions of the popular feminism scholars who keep cultural

traditions within their feminist ideology. This has not translated to women’s emancipation.

Unfortunately, this has been reproduced over a long time (Adu, 2013). As an insider, I

understand that there is more to Jide’s response, as it is later confirmed that men’s desire for

women to be empowered is another way to further oppress them. This they do by shifting more

of the household financial responsibilities on women in addition to the heavy burdens of

children’s care.

Furthermore, some men think that providing and caring for the needs of their household

is too much a burden for them, and they want to push that over to the women, so they prefer their

wives to be empowered financially. This is in addition to the domestic responsibilities that have

been culturally assigned to women which some men regard as idleness, even when women are

caring for 5 or more children without any helping hands from men. More so, it is the belief of

men that a woman’s place is in the kitchen, no matter her social, economic, or educational status.

Even with men hoping for women to be “empowered” so that she will bring more money to the

family, they still expect that women continue with the domestic chores alone. This is a burden.

Bamidele is another senior officer of the local government, a married man, who further

confirms this patriarchal ideology in his response.

My own idea about women’s empowerment is that it will be a source of

relief to the man.…So if a woman is empowered, it will be a great

assistance to the man

(Bamidele, personal interview, May 30, 2019 at Ilawe Ekiti).

After my discussion with this man, I felt a deep sense of pain and kept wondering about

the self-centered attitude of men as he talked. I wrote this in my field notes:

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The only reason men would prefer women to have money is for her to

take up more household responsibilities and free the man from doing it.

Making women to live their lives to serve the selfish interest of men…

OPPRESSION.

From my Field notes, after interview of May 30, 2019 at Ilawe Ekiti).

Sade, a woman at the local council office, confirmed the above in her response:

some men (those who are referred to as responsible to care for their

children) prefer to empower their wives so that the burden of raising the

children, and household economy will not fall on them alone.

I was very curious to know further if these women only desire money as

cash delivered into their hands to be used for their myriad financial burdens. The

next section discusses the efforts of women to make money.

Theme Three: Women Making Their Own Empowerment:

Women’s Mat Weaving Endeavors in the Past:

The interview respondents at Ogotun Ekiti also clearly revealed that their understandings

and expectations of empowerment are for their mat weaving endeavors to translate to money. If

they were given voices and choices on empowerment, it would have been what would translate

to money to meet their needs. Therefore, how the mats become money is what they know as

empowerment.

When I can say that there is empowerment through mats is when the

students come and buy it. Everybody will sell all the mats woven and the

ones kept in their houses waiting for sale… We will collect the money

instantly and take care of our dire needs.

(Rose, personal interview, May 27,2019).

Rose was an 80-year old woman who was a member of the Better Life for

Rural Women Center when it was functional.

Abigail, is another woman who participated in the focus group at Ogotun

said in a private interview that:

Even white people come to buy this mat. … This translates to more money

for us to take care of our needs

(Abigail, a Focus Group Discussant, May 27, 2019 at Ogotun).

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This production of mats could result in organizing these mat weaving women into trade

groups, that is, a group that is focused on a product and operates by rules and structures to fulfill

a goal set for the group. So, if these women are organized into such trade groups, it could

provide money regularly without waiting for some people or persons at random to buy their

mats. This is the case of women in the Saki community mentioned in the literature review of this

study. The women were organized into a community-based cooperative, which started to mass-

produce Shea butter for commercial use. Through the use of locally manufactured and

improvised equipment, they were able to increase production for businesses, which gave them

financial empowerment (Essiet, 2015). That was their choice of the type of empowerment.

This probably was the plan for Ogotun Mat weaving center during the military

administration in the state. A similar center was established in Ogotun for mat weaving which

was supervised by the local government but financed by the state government through the

national government. However, this center had become dilapidated because of the failure of the

local government to adequately oversee the center.

Some of the respondents understood empowerment as receiving financial support for

more mat production and sales that translates to money in their hands. Such is the case of Lydia,

who talked about an international businesswoman from Sweden who gives money in advance to

produce mats, and who will also transport them to Lagos, where she sells them and sometimes

exports them, without incurring any cost to the women. This is an acceptable empowerment to

these people since the work of the Swedish woman ultimately results in more money to the local

mat weavers.

Lydia said this Swedish woman who is also an entrepreneur provides the

‘empowerment’.

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There is none of our work (mats) that would not be taken out of the country

to international market and sell it. This makes our mats a high value

product which turns out to bring more money for us (Lydia, personal

interview, May 23, 2019).

Lydia also explained further that because the Swedish woman understands the situation

of the women and their immediate needs which is very key to determine the empowerment

strategy that will work for them. Further, the Swedish woman provides them with money in

advance to meet their needs while they weave her mats and the women said they were happy

when they receive money. Lydia also said that the Swedish woman transported the mats for free

from Ogotun, so the women do not need to take the mats to her.

She gives them (women) money to work (weave mats) and rendered her

vehicle to transport mats to Lagos without a charge to the women.

Therefore, they can have enough money to use.

She takes everything (mats) away, even the products that are considered

useless, she said they would be useful for another thing and she pays

money for them

(Lydia, personal interview, May 23, 2019)

The women expressed the respect they have for this Swedish woman for providing a

means out of their financial calamities and the relief they get from the burdens for their children

with little or no help from men.

Lydia is the wife of the king, who also coordinates the cooperative society, to which most

women belong. Lydia and her daughter (a university graduate, married, and living in Lagos by

the time of this research), had established a replica, though smaller in size and capacity, of the

government abandoned women training center (Better Life for Rural Women).She appeared to

be very industrious and hardworking, from my observation of her in the factory. She moved up

and down, carried mats, folded and packed products made from mats such as hand fans, table

mats and others. She buys the mats from the rural women at a price (which seems good to the

women, according to Comfort who sold one to her in my presence). This put money in the

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women’s purses, and they are always ready to sell their mats to her for instant cash. She gives the

purchased mats to a lady she employed to use the sewing machine to design and sew these

handmade mats into different products such as bags, conference folders for corporate and

government programs, shoes, and dining table mats for sales in big cities and overseas. I bought

a few of these products totaling more than ten thousand Naira (50USD). Another dimension to

this is that some of the women collect money from Lydia when they have urgent expenses to

make when there are no credit facilities. They do so in anticipation to return such money for the

value of the mats afterwards. Rose told me that they calculate the cost of each mat based on how

many colors of dye that are added to make the mats look more beautiful and the size of the mats

as well.

These women’s understandings of empowerment and their embeddedness in a patriarchal

culture helps explain why many empowerment projects in Africa are moribund since they are

mostly designed without understanding the lives of the women beneficiaries. Kabeer (2010)

argued that empowerment is a mutual process of give and take between the donors and the

recipients, but often the funding agencies do not consider the beliefs and values of those for

whom the project was created.

Knowing the recipients’ meaning and expectations about empowerment should guide

empowerment program development and designs. Rural Nigerian women’s voices should be part

of the program development. Grassroots empowerment programs should be indigenously

conceived and culturally delivered to meet the local needs of the people and their personal

development which will translate to community and national development (Akpan, 2015).

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Women’s Current Solutions to Ameliorate Their Disempowerment at the Grassroots Level:

This theme discusses the efforts of the women in this study to make meaning of their

gendered lives currently through various self-help strategies that were noted during the field

work.

women are really striving, and they are doing all they could to live a good

life, and imagine if they were empowered, they will go places. They will

do much more…if they have resources like the men, they will do better

than men. I am sure of that, yes, because I think women are more serious

minded when it comes to managing resources than men (Sade, personal

interview, May 30, 2019 at Ilawe Ekiti).

This quote shows the strong belief in the capability and desires of the rural Nigerian

women with whom I spoke. This section discusses some of the stories Sade told me about how

rural women struggled with little resources to support their families.

The women of Ogotun are very resilient, even in the face of the challenges to realize their

goals. They realize that the government and other institutions, traditions and culture, the society

and in some cases women themselves reproduce patriarchy. They acknowledge their deprivation,

oppressions and the daunting duty of bringing up their children with few financial resources.

Since colonialism and its accompanying patriarchy forced them out of their former profession of

cash crop farmers in the pre-colonial era and men took over these (Ako- Nai, 2013), and the

assistance of government and development agencies are not forthcoming to them. These women,

therefore, turned to self-help strategies to support themselves and meet their economic needs.

They defy the Snail sense strand of popular African feminism that encourages women to retreat

and surrender in the face of opposition, or Nego-feminism that encourages them to beg men for

financial help and always negotiate the government and men for help. Although the women are

not physically confrontational, they stood against all their inhibitors and government failure to

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rise above their challenges by devising various self-help strategies. This is the position of

Adichie, the pragmatic African feminist, who argued that women should stand up and use their

potential to challenge the status quo to move themselves forward until they are heard (Adichie,

2012). These women used two main strategies to approach their self-help. These are collective

and individual strategies as discussed below.

Collective Efforts of Women:

I open this discussion with my field notes;

The women in this study worked against their predicaments created by the

society, men and the failure of government to support them. Hence these

women created their ways of self-assistance

(My Field notes, after interview of May 27, 2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

In these approaches, women realized that they could pool their meagre resources together

to help themselves. Therefore, women devised their own ways to be empowered. They came to

know that they needed a means of livelihood rather than depend on their husbands or families or

government for survival. To have come to this decision confirms what Sade said about women

being resourceful and possessing problem solving skills.

Lydia, who is the women leader and the president of this group, said that if their group

does not lean towards any political party, it would help them to keep the women focused on the

purpose of their coming together, since the community is divided along political lines as is

everyone in Ekiti. There is a unique peace Ekiti people enjoyed because they are homogenous by

tribe, language, ethnicity and religion. They do not experience tribal or ethnic conflict which

usually causes division in most states in the nation, but this was not the case with political

affiliations. The state is polarized along this line and this has a negative effect on the women

because empowerment programs were abandoned, and politicians gave money only to their party

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loyalists. More so, women in Ekiti did not receive many benefits from politics like men in terms

of positions and appointments into political offices and party leadership. Women only played

secondary roles.

Because of the above reason, these rural women did not belong to any political party so

that they could foster unity of purpose since difference in political parties means conflict in

Nigeria. The women at the rural level preferred to remain neutral; hence this would translate to

neither personal financial benefits nor favor from any political party including the ruling party

their group. These women therefore launched a private society called Ifedapo meaning “love had

mixed us together.” This group was not corporately registered, but it was well known with their

social agenda and activities in the township.

The main agenda of Ifedapo is to help women in their group to bear the respective

responsibilities and challenges that often confront group members. The women in the group were

twenty at the start, but by the time of this research, they are about nine functional members. They

could not tell me the exact year they started because there was no documentation of the founding

of the group, but there were reference points to some of their past activities which suggests that

the group is more than ten years old. While I was asking about their mission, goal and

operations, Tam, who was responding to my questions, told me they hold weekly meetings to

discuss how to make their mat weaving business more successful and increase its production.

But she lamented that they are making frantic efforts since they do not have enough external

funding to promote their mission as they have hoped for as a group.

When we come together as a group for meeting, we usually discuss what

to do and how the mats weaving business will be progressing to make

profits to make this group flourish. More so, what we can do

that government can help this group since we do not belong to their party.

We are so concerned about how to improve the group will not go into

extinction.

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(Tam, personal interview, May 27,2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

Talking about the challenges they face as group, Tam said;

The group ought to have made more progress than what we have now, but

what I think is the problem is lack of money to promote it, but the group

is not dormant.

She talked about their efforts to be heard at the state headquarters asking for help, but it

did not yield anything “and Eye’Lori (Queen) took us to Ado Ekiti (state headquarter) then and

they heard our petitions asking for their help, but no help was rendered to us”. These women,

however, were not deterred by the denial of help from the government; rather they were very

determined to forge ahead with their activities with hope that maybe one day the government

officials would remember them and give them the needed support(money) to flourish.

I asked them how they were able to support themselves. Tam said each member makes

daily contributions of twenty naira ($.0055) which represents a daily savings (Esusu) for these

women, but when these amounts are put together for every member, it is substantial. This is a

strategy of a locally organized micro finance system. This locally microfinance system is called

Esusu or Ajo. Some private entrepreneurs and banks have an improved system of this approach

called micro finance banks. This is common in some developing countries, including Nigeria,

Bangladesh and India. Micro finance banks are established to finance the poor in their

businesses; however, they have high interest rate charged to meet their overhead cost and

services, although they claim the organization is not for profit making. This high interest rate is

a barrier to the rural women (Kanu & Gabriel,2015). Operationally the local micro finance

strategy in many communities is usually to have appointed officers who meet interested

registered trading women at their market stalls to collect these contributions and charge them a

little percentage. The women also share profits from the interest charge from whoever takes a

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loan from the contributions. However, the women in Ifelodun society were not organized for

either of these patterns; rather, the goal of this society was not for profit but only to support very

needy group members without any interest or service charge. This approach makes it very

difficult to raise enough money to do any major projects and sometimes it is hard to give enough

money to more than one person to meet urgent needs. Tam said whoever needed money is given

a loan without interest from the group money. This was confirmed by Lydia.

We hold our meetings every week but sometimes when anyone of us is

facing any challenge, we may call a meeting and we all counsel her about

whatever is happening to her, if it is about money, how much is it, we

arrange for the money and give her as loan and tell her that whenever she

has time to work for it, she can pay back (Lydia, personal interview, May

23, 2019) .

Tam shared with me an occasion she used the society. “…the money I borrowed was

five thousand Naira ($)”. I asked further the steps she took before she was qualified… “I do

make my daily contributions regularly and I was active in the group”. By that she meant

attending meetings regularly and making the weekly contributions. She further talked about the

conditions for the money borrowed:

Eye lori (Queen) told us that anybody that wants to borrow this money

should ensure that she uses it either for farm work or uses it in weaving

mats, they should just ensure that they do the work and ensure that it earns

them profit. So the profit could be for the borrowers.

I asked further about her own experience when she used her five thousand Naira she said;

I used it for two years to work on my mat plantation and after that two

years my mats farm that I used it for increased. I earned more money and

I never go hungry again

(Tam, personal interview, May 27,2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

This was confirmed by other women in the focus group discussion on the money they got

from their society, and how they used it. Following the general ground rules, Tam said:

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We used it to clear the bush, we will hire the service of laborer which will

help us to clear the farmland and prepare it. The land then becomes fertile

for the mats to flourish. We are always excited after a time to see that the

leaves were appearing fresh. Then we pray that it will be well with those

that borrowed us this money, they have done something nice. We see that

the mats have grown so well and increased in quality.

I asked them about the challenges faced with the self-help loans or going further with the work

and family. Tam shared her story that:

when I borrowed that money, I told my husband when I got home, when

it remained some amount for me to finish paying back that money, my

husband was the one that paid the remaining one on my behalf. He gave

me the money as a support that he was pleased with that work I used the

money for. He gave Eyelori the money himself

(Tam, personal interview, May 27,2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

The action of Tam’s husband here was a cultural acknowledgement of the women’s

group to support themselves in the face of all hardships and opposition. This was a big testimony

and that was why Tam was very proud to talk about it. No doubt this was a way to entice other

men to key into the vision. The women were so determined and shunned all that could stop them.

They began to challenge patriarchy and traditions by their actions. Ogundipe’s STIWANISM

explains that women should challenge the traditions and get themselves involved in the

transformation process. Tam’s husband saw her changed approach to overcome the usual barrier,

and he supported the process. I suppose if more men would go in this direction to support

women’s causes and move away patriarchy, and support the actualization of feminist principles,

there would be a great shift towards gender equality. This is what Gbowe’s father did in Liberia

when he refused the traditional genital mutilations of her girls and raised one of Africa’s

foremost feminists and Nobel peace winner. More men should join the fight to collapse the wall

of patriarchy in different ways just as bell hooks and Adichie advocates for all to be feminists.

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The women in this study had not asked or begged as men would have wanted them to do. Rather,

they pragmatically challenged all the barriers and moved forward. This is a sure pointer that that

these rural women though without formal education and donor’s support, through their self-help

initiatives, potential skills and efforts can collapse traditions that are oppressive and use their

intellectual strength to support themselves. If women continue in these efforts, with appropriate

and desired type of support, they will be adequately empowered that the men in the

community and beyond will realize that women are making progress and challenging the

patriarchal authority. Tam, however, said that they could do better in their group if they have

support beyond the little money they contribute.

That group now, if it is that God will remember us for good and God will

allow government to consider us, ehn, if government considered us, it will

make the group to me be better than before (Tam, personal interview, May

27,2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

The next section discusses the second strategy I found with these women to combat their

challenges, and this is what they do outside their group. I am continually moved with the resolute

spirit of these women. I consulted with my guiding local professor about giving them a little

money individually for attending the focus group discussion. At the end of the focus group

discussion, I had to engage some of them on personal follow up interviews, which took their

time. They were happy to receive the cash gifts because they were not expecting or demanding

anything.

Individual Efforts:

Besides the collective efforts, these women continued to work and use different strategies

individually to keep the same purpose since the support of the collective is not enough to meet

their needs. Most of the women engage in farming, while others sell some things to get enough

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money to pay their children’s education fees and other welfare. Sade told me the story of two

women who did different things to earn money. In the first story, the woman sold her clothes to

pay fees when she had nothing more to sell because women do not have property or any profit

yielding investments, so the only thing she had was her clothing. The other woman in Sade ‘s

story had to fry and sell akara (bean cake), made from blended beans fired into small balls in hot

boiling oil, mostly done outside the house where those passing may stop and buy. These are

usually sold for as little as about one cent per ball. She may do this from 5am until noon making

and selling about 100 to 150 balls and start again in the evening about 4pm until about 9pm and

usually do this all throughout the week. Below is Sade’s narration of the story;

I have seen women that sell their clothes, to train their children, to send

their children to school. This was a common thing around here in the past,

women sell their clothes. It shows the passion women have for

children. And there was a woman at Emure Ekiti (another township in the

state) then, she was selling Akara and with that Akara, she trained her

children, from that money, she sent her first son to Obafemi Awolowo

University, Ife, the guy studied Architecture. Later the young man had the

opportunity of travelling overseas. The second born too and from there,

all of them, about three of them are overseas now without the help of the

husband and the children are doing fine and well. The last time I saw her,

one of them had built a fine edifice for her at Ado here very close to my

place there

(Sade, individual interview, May 30, 2019 at Ilawe Ekiti).

The women have given up on the help from men and they forge ahead; some of them told

me that they were doing business without any support. Olu, a woman between 55 and 60 years of

age, told me that her husband would not give her money for business. “I am the one that

sponsors myself. If my husband is satisfied, if he has enough for feeding and refreshment, he

may sponsor me”. She remarked that it is a difficult thing for men to support his wife in business

because of their selfish interest.

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The women in this location would have been wonderfully productive, if

the government, leadership, policy, husband is aimed at this. Rather the

women were neglected, afflicted, oppressed and they have to result into

hard self-help strategy to meet their economic needs and for survival with

their children.

My Field notes, after interview of May 27, 2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

This is Abigail’s experience with her husband, when I asked if her husband supports her

in the business. Abigail was one of the two women who arrived first to the focus group

discussion, so I used that time to have a preliminary discussion with her. At the beginning, she

was not open when talking about her husband with me. I believe she saw me as an outsider, but

later when we continued in the discussion and other women were coming in, this woman of

about 70 years opened up and below is her response:

Ahh, No one gives me money; it is God that gives me money for my

business, (laughing). It is God that gives me money for business. I engage

in no other sales than these mats. I do my business alone. No support from

my husband.

Rose, 80 years old but very agile, active and strong, also confirmed her

self-efforts to support herself. In her story she said:

I was born into mat weaving business. I didn’t go to school; I was taught

to weave mats and that is what I did until I got married and went to Ghana

with my husband. There at Ghana, we were both doing diamond business

although differently.

I asked further if she got any support from her husband; her response was that her

husband has always taken from her proceeds when they do same business and he was not even

then rendering any help.

My husband was doing his and I did mine. But it was my husband that will

go and collect money from our buyers and, he would give me any amount

that he wished. When I came back from Ghana, I started another business

of selling jewelries, both earrings and necklaces, I did a great business in

such a way that I was well known all over the town and I travelled to

Ibadan(a commercial city in another state) to buy them. I was also weaving

mats and took pictures of them, I even brought some of the pictures here

the last time I came here. Later when I do not have strength to travel again

to be buying goods at Ibadan and I can’t not be begging since my husband

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would not support me, I took to farming. I planted maize; I have leaves.

My husband was also doing his farm work until he died almost fifteen

years ago, and I continue the farm work. It hasn’t been long that I came

back from farm that I joined you here.

I asked how she was able to do the rigorous farm work when she could not travel for

business, she said:

whenever I go to the farm, whatsoever produce I find there, or if it was

mats, I will sell it and use the money to hire workmen (nomadic not the

local men, the workmen are from another small tribe and search for such

farm work to sustain their families and they often settle in small

communities to be hired as farm labors) to do my farm work I am the one

doing it all. I usually assign someone to the farm and come back home to

continue my mats weaving. I have money to do farm work and at the same

time, take care of my needs.

(rewritten for understanding of the English reader)

Sometimes these women combined their efforts and ideas to work and help themselves in

their mat weaving to have a quick turn over and meet buyers’ specifications. Such was the

experience Olu shared with me:

Some of us only know how to weave white mats while some know how

to weave red mats. It is of different types. There are some mats that are of

different marks, while some are with white marks while some are mixture

of the marks. But then there are some of us that know how to weave all

the types of mats, so we go to meet such people that knows better on the

types of the mats and discuss the specifications that is given by a potential

buyer and plan how to do it together? Like this my mama now, I may come

and meet her that this is the one that I was given to do, what strategy are

we going to use to do it? The day that we will start, the day we are going

to end it that it we be ready, we will discuss that together …and we do it

together and share the money

(Olu, individual interview, May 27, 2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

These are some of the strategies these women used to work around the challenges. It

gives me a thought to examine what the outcome of their self-help efforts is yielding.

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The Outcome of their Efforts:

Recounting the benefits from their various self-support systems, Tam, who got five

thousand Naira from the group contributory funds, said her experience is common to all women

who have enjoyed the benefits that:

when we borrowed that money, we used it to work and it truly earned us

profit, so we see that our group is a good group because we used it to do

farm work, those that used their own to weave mats, and it earned us

profits

(Tam, individual interview, May 27, 2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

Another respondent said her self-effort is paying back for her in her old

age:

when I started weaving mats of different designs, I sold them and

whenever my children ask for money from me, I gave them. I am reaping

the efforts now. All my children are in Lagos (the biggest city in Africa,

the commercial center in Nigeria), and are gainfully employed now. If I

send someone to them about my needs…in fact I don’t even need to send

anyone to them before they send me money. For example, few days ago,

‘I didn’t call them, because I didn’t have money to recharge my phone

(most people do pay as you go service on their mobile phone service in

Nigeria), and one of them realized this and quickly sent me money. So, all

what I did then, I am reaping the fruit now.

(Rose, individual interview, May 27, 2019).

Rose was very proud of her commitment to meet her children’s need when they were in school

and now, they are giving her all the support she needs. She told me that she enjoyed their

support for her health care by buying her medication to keep her well. The efforts of these

women are yielding positive results as they are making progress to overcome their hindrances

and challenges. However, it is not without some hardships as noted by one of the respondents:

it is a heavy load on those women, because they don’t sleep at night. They

will do the mat work through the night and when it is morning, they will

follow their husbands to farm. Those women are usually overworked and

could make them become aged quickly. Except sometimes when their

husband did not have work in the farm, they will stay home to do their

own mats in the day but is not so most of the time

(Debby, personal interview, May 27, 2019 at Ogotun Ekiti).

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Lydia said that women still had to do the daily running of the home

besides their businesses.

you consider what is happening, in fact, some women are the ones taking

care of the burdens at home in our community and others like ours.

Because most men who claim to be responsible for family up keep when

they wake up in the morning, they will dropped one hundred naira($), that

cannot sustain the family, so it is the woman that knows how to go here

and there to get some more money to add to ensure a perfect well-being of

the children and the man

(Lydia, individual interview, May 23, 2019)

.

But in general, all the women that participated in the focus group discussion expressed

their satisfaction and delight about their self-help initiatives and said affirmatively that “we were

happy and concluded that this group is a good group”.

Within me I could infer that the actions of these women including the creation,

leadership, and management of their support group to help themselves has given them adequate

courage to face the situations around them and are making good progress towards liberation.

Conclusion:

The findings discussed here reveal the dynamics of many factors that are embedded in

patriarchy that forms the foundation of oppression of women by men. It also depicted re-

inscription and reproduction of these oppressions by the institutions expected to salvage the

situation of women. However, the self-help projects of these women were a step towards

empowerment without the input of men. It is robust evidence that men have downplayed the

capacity of women to change society and make a difference. Women have demonstrated through

their successful self-empowerment strategy that it is possible to attain the heights they want if the

barriers of patriarchy are removed even without external support. But this may be very difficult

in the face of entrenched and dynamic patriarchal oppressions. In the next chapter, I discuss the

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implications of this findings and some other ways young women are losing hopes about

empowerment. However, I know a little here and there of social justice and advocacy may make

some impact rather than accept defeat. It is a long journey of a continuum.

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CHAPTER SIX: DISCUSSION ON FINDINGS, RECOMMENDATION AND IMPLICATION

Insider Stories:

What could be more frustrating to go through rigors of school without fulfilling one's

dream? In this concluding chapter of my dissertation, I opened with my experience with some

young women in the university whose vision and dream looks so bleak to them with the

prevailing circumstances that confronts them. The opportunity I have to share my research with

them gave them the voice to tell me in summary what they go through. This was very heavy in

my heart.

During my data collection process, I went to Nigeria, specifically to Ekiti state. I had the

privilege to work with a professor of Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti prior to my visit. He was

my host in the research field because Ogotun was his hometown, and he played resident host to

me in terms of accommodations. As a senior lecturer in the department of political science, Dr.

Ade was a very influential program director in the department and the chief examination officer.

He teaches both graduate and undergraduate classes and departmental undergraduate core classes

in the four levels (freshmen to senior) rather called 100level to 400level respectively in their

terminology classes. Dr. Ade is always looking for opportunities to expose his students to new

knowledge beyond the regular classes. During my various over the phone meetings and our

group WhatsApp chats with other research assistants about my research and travel plans to

Nigeria, he developed great interest in my work and proposed I share this with their students. He

made plans for me to speak in the departmental lecture series. All students (undergraduate and

graduate) and faculty are expected to attend this quarterly series. I was listed for the May edition

to share my research but was re-titled, “Women’s Empowerment Intervention in Nigeria” under

the theme Social Science Research in the 21st Century Praxis. I worked on this proposal

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with my committee members and my chair Dr. Pam Bettis provided help to prepare for

this before I departed for Nigeria in May 14th, 2019.

I was honored to have about 200 in the large domed shape auditorium as audience which

included both students and faculty members. The furniture in the auditorium was very squeaky

and some of it revealed exposed nails. I tore my pants on one of those nails and it cut into my

skin before the lectures. There was no electricity supply to power the public address system due

to the usual power failure in Nigeria, so the staff had to hire a portable generator. The noise of

the generator filtered into the hall because the doors were opened for ventilation since the fans

were not connected to the generator. Soon the room was ready to hear me and see my slide

presentations. Because of the hot weather, I had to pull off my suit jacket, because I dressed up

as a guest lecturer, a tradition shaped by western culture. But I noticed that no one dressed up

and most of the faculty were in simple native, but some are corporately dressed.

There were no women faculty that I recognized. The students were very respectful and

eager to learn, I found this out from the way they stood and addressed me with courtesy,

although they were randomly noisy during my talk After the introduction, my host teacher told

the students to participate and warned that attendance will attract grade points. I shared this

context to show a little of what students went through to study, in just one observation, and for

such students not to have her dreams realized is very sad. The lectures were participatory and

opened with the reason why my research is needed, and I talked about why we need

empowerment for women and what the gains are from existing empowerment programs. The

students remarked that with many interventions, both in practice and theories, there is still no

noticeable improvement for women. Rather women’s empowerment programs are made by men

in the name of women for men’s benefits.

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The students commented that there are research studies and recommendations that are

made to policy makers and governments, but regrettably, because there are no connections

between academia and governance, the recommendations are lost. Because of this, women

mostly are victims of the ills in the society. And their voices and choices do not matter to people

who claim that they work for women. Women are never heard. Some of the female students that

responded during the lecture said they usually met with obstacles and challenges that could keep

them away from pursuing their dreams. This include society’s preference of male child in

schools, the prevalent sexual harassment in college for grades by male lecturers, the glass ceiling

at jobs and gender marginalization that characterize the job market after education, the abduction

of female students. This is worrisome for these women students because it is a threat to their

development.

I left the lecture with a question about the missing link? There is no doubt there are

genuine concerns and love expressed by some organizations and individuals to change the

situation of women globally, and I want to be part of this through research and social action. I

begin with putting forward the implications and recommendations found in this study. In

applying these recommendations in a more pragmatic and activist approach, I believe the

concerns and burdens of these students will be addressed.

My data collection took me 8000 miles away in the summer of 2019 to meet with the

lovely women at Ogotun and Ilawe and hear their stories firsthand. It gave me a great

opportunity to develop connections with these groups of people who saw me as insider, even

though they knew I was not part of their experiences. However, they were very willing to be part

of the study without asking for a reward. They have demonstrated to me through their words and

works that they have valuable things to offer, they are intelligent, they are focused and

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knowledgeable. They are independent when encouraged to speak and offered freedom to choose.

The time spent with them was very golden. I remembered leaving an interview session with Sade

on a Wednesday to discover that I lost the interview data because I did not notice that the

recording device was accidentally switched off. Her interview was very key to this research. I

returned to her the next Tuesday without being scheduled, almost a week later. To my surprise,

she gladly accepted to be re interviewed and gave more information than before. She also

facilitated meeting other people whom I interviewed too. I am indebted to all who contributed to

my research and hope to maintain the relationships I made while collecting data.

The summary of the findings:

I reexamined the three research questions of this study and my findings. First, women’s

understandings and experiences must be considered in the design of women’s grassroots

empowerment programs. It must be the voice and choice of women, not the voice and choice of

men. Secondly, government (state, local and national), leadership at all levels, development

institutions, NGOs, and private societies, and others should free their organizational structures

and policies from partisan politics characterized by patriarchy and dominant masculinity.

Thirdly, there should be a deliberate change to the roles that men play in the community to

dismantle the cultural practices and patriarchal structures that oppress women in their homes and

in the community. Men should reject colonial legacies that oppress women from accessing

opportunities that could enhance the development of their choices and voices.

There are three main findings as discussed in the previous chapter. First, the participants

at Ogotun and their understanding about empowerment is money and the reason why they hold

that meaning was mainly because of the Nigerian patriarchal culture that left them with the

responsibilities of children and home care without any resources from their men. Secondly, I

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found that patriarchy culture has permeated the government at their different tiers and they have

failed to support the sustainability of women’s grassroots empowerment programs in this rural

area. Also patriarchy manifestations in traditional practices, homes, religion institutions were

factors that continually subjugates women from making their choices known and voices heard.

Lastly, I found that women employed some self-help strategies to ameliorate the situations

confronting them. In the local women’s group, I talked with, I found that women displayed great

creativity, leadership and management skills with their voices and choices although with much

pain and little gains, but they feel they can realize their dreams.

Implications from the Findings of this Research:

The findings of this study reveal that there are problems and setbacks afflicting the

empowerment of rural women at the grassroots level. The experiences of these rural Nigerian

women show that the actions and inactions of government and politicians have adverse effects on

the people they are serving. The inability of local government to perform their duties has

detrimental effects on the lives of people who reside in the rural areas since local government is

expected to bring governance closer to these people more than any other tiers of government.

The following sections discusses implications of the findings for various players that wield

power in these grassroots empowerment strategies and programs for rural women. These

implications are more of demand for social change and action that could lead to the dismantling

of the current practices and status quo that is dominated with burdens and inequalities on women.

The implications explicitly recommend ways to deconstruct dominant discourse about

empowerment that is characterized with cultural practices, post-colonial agenda of the western

donors and patriarchal structures in all institutions taking the lead in empowerment programs that

exclude women’ voice and choice. The implication demands a new strategy into education at all

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levels within and without the formal school system to learn about equality of men and women

and its societal benefits.

Implications for Funders of Women Programs

International organizations who advocate for gender equality make women’s

empowerment a focus of many intervention programs and projects. However, key players

include the United Nations (UN), United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

and other international development agencies and non-government organizations (NGO). The

leaders of these organizations need to know and understand the peculiar experiences of rural and

urban women at the grassroots level and know that these experiences are dynamic and

contextual. Consequently, in channeling their funds towards grassroots empowerment projects,

donors would be able to address the needs and obstacles of these women. Because it is obvious

that rural women have different needs from urban women. For example, the laudable Women’

Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) initiative was launched by the Trump

administration through USAID with a grant of 11million dollars to empower 1.7 billion women

in developing countries in the digital economy. The women would use mobile phones for

internet connectivity according to the November 18, 2019 report of USAID. This type of

initiative or intervention may not be useful to many rural women since there is no access to the

internet and other infrastructural facilities to support the program. More so it would not meet

their peculiar needs of empowerment. Donors need to find out what the women’s needs are and

adequately work with the women to address the needs towards giving them the needed and

desired empowerment that is relevant to them. This is where their voices and choices are

important about what will work for them. The findings in this research discovered that these rural

women wanted to weave mats to solve their monetary needs, which they see as their means of

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empowerment, which will translate money. Money is their need hence their understandings of

empowerment is having money to solve their economic needs.

However, rather than give them money like the politicians in Ekiti state would do, which

caused divisions among the rural women in the community, these women would rather be

provided with loan facility or grant (as they did in their self-help group) to assist them in their

farming of the plants and also to purchase and train with equipment that make the bags, table

mats and others.

However, their fulfillment was not only monetary gains they make from the sales of their

products but also their self-esteem in their products going to larger cities and make names from

it. Besides without begging any man for support to help them train their children and feed. This

would alleviate their sufferings in the hands of their husbands and reduce subordinations of

women as the society reproduces the culture. This is similar to what the female students were

experiencing within their university and wondering if the systems would never give women even

with education the right they deserve. The system reproduces the inequality.

There is a need for donors and funders to align programs to the needs of the beneficiaries.

This can be done by conducting research on the community and seeking the voices of the

women. Kabeer (2010) argued that empowerment is a shared process between benefactors and

beneficiaries. That is the benefactors would hear from the beneficiaries what their needs are and

what would be their different choices. This is when empowerment will be effective, and the

beneficiaries would be adequately helped. The women in this research were very happy and

fulfilled when they worked with mats in their Better Life center before it was defuncted.

Through the women’s collective efforts, their products were sold in international markets;

they gained leadership and self-management experiences. They were also able to meet their

144

social and economic needs through the trade of mat weaving. The women were not only fulfilled

but these rural women became relevant in the society. A Swedish woman became acquainted

with them and promoted their products. A woman from the community was also sponsored to

attend an international mat trade fair in India.

Therefore, to reach out to rural Nigerian women, a dynamic framework that incorporates

their participation in term of choice and voices during the formative stages of these

empowerment programs is needed.to make the program relevant and sustainable (Akpan, 2015).

Implications for Government:

Nigerian government bureaucracies currently are detrimental to the empowerment of

women at the grassroots. Constitutionally, community development is the duty of the local

government in Nigeria (Khemanu, 2001), it brings governance and development to rural regions

through the funding of projects and programs. Rural women are expected to benefit from such as

arrangement. The Better Life for Rural Women’s Center at Ogotun is an example of such

initiatives when it was in its full operational state. Unfortunately, the national government

bureaucracy withdrew funds from the local government and decided to fund local government

programs directly without a separate budget. Things got worse for local government funding

when there was a change in the national government from military to civilian rule as revealed by

the data. The deputy director of community development of Ekiti south west at Ilawe confirmed

that with the change to civilian rule, the state government controlled all the funds. This made it

difficult for the local government to fund local programs. Whenever an organization gives

grants, it is administered through the state government most times without the input of the local

government. One major issue is that donors and agencies in collaboration with the politicians in

145

government like to showcase any development projects, therefore, they go to urban areas where

these could easily be seen and publicized leaving the rural areas undeveloped most times.

The establishment of projects is also done for political reasons and for the politicians to

receive laurels for doing it to increase their political profile for subsequent election or

appointment. Therefore, to resolve these bureaucratic policies and processes, the local

government should be given autonomy to carry out its statutory function as stated in the Nigerian

constitutions towards community development and be made to be accountable to the people, that

is democracy, power must be in the hands of the people.

Implications for Research:

There is a need for continual research into rural Nigerian women’s work so that there will

be evidence-based knowledge about the dynamics in the living conditions of the rural dwellers

and operations of grassroots empowerment programs. The systematic approach used in research

will allow the stories of the rural dwellers to be heard periodically as culture, politics and

economic landscape changes and subsequently produce research findings that will become a

leading resource to stakeholders for policies making, for management and development agencies

and for social justice activists. Researchers and activists at this time could be the voice for these

voiceless, although Denzin and Lincoln (1993) argue that qualitative researchers cannot totally

represent the voice of participants. However, critical researchers can lead social justice actions

that will bring change to the participants’ circumstances which is one reason for conducting this

research.

The women in this study had their empowerment center sold without their voices, their

skills downplayed, and their products wasted. They are struggling under many burdens. The

work of a qualitative researcher is to present the participants’ voices and their experiences.

146

Human services and needs are dynamic, so research must be continuous for creating current data

and knowledge that will be useful for policy making and types of empowerment program that is

relevant.

The Implication for Educators is to work in the Community:

Both men and women need to be educated about the effect of cultural practices that

oppress rural women. Their marginalization and deprivation of rights become a waste of human

resources. This critical education will create awareness and understanding in the community that

may lead to the liberation of women from dominant cultural beliefs and practices and give them

the quality lives they choose to live. This is a sure road to gender equality a target of United

Nations by 2030(UN,2015).

Likewise, men would understand that it is imperative for women to have the same access

to resources and positions like men and give women the same right men have in the family and

the community. Children’s welfare will become a joint responsibility and women’s oppression

and abuses is abated if men and women would continue to hear this education. Children, in turn,

will grow with a balanced knowledge of men and women’s rights, women and girls will have

better chance of reaching far heights in their dreams about life as against what the female

students are currently facing with the conventional colonial legacy patriarchal system of

education that reproduces inequality in various academics and vocational training institutions.

Rural women should be educated about corrupt practices in the politics around them and how

to resist the bait of politicians who gives out money to some women that invariably rob them of

their rights to have quality empowerment programs. The women should be educated about the

practices involved in partisans politicking and collecting free money or “sharing the national

cake” as they call it. This knowledge will put women in a better position to push back against

147

these politicians’ corruption, and the women will know that collection of such free money before

and during electioneering would results in selling their conscience and rights away. This will

make these officials and politicians to shirk in their responsibilities without anybody calling

them to order. from them and the government. The experience of the women in this research

shows that the local government authority and the politicians in their area sold their

empowerment center with all the equipment to their fellow politicians and they gave a few of the

women loyalists ‘small amounts of money to get away with this as discussed in chapter five of

this dissertation.

The politicians often use money to divide the unity of women so they will deny all

women their rights. For example, the Better Life for Rural Women training center was not

maintained by the politicians, but it was sold, and no one could resist that because the women

were divided over the small money they gave to few individual.

Government officials at all levels need to be educated about the predicament of rural women,

so they can take adequate measures. Media has an important role in publicizing women’s

situation. Hopefully, civil society will call for action and assessment of the situation for

improvement.

In public and private schools, the curriculum should be revamped to include human and social

issues in the community. The experiences of poor rural women should be woven into curriculum

in different stages (K -12 and higher education) so that girls know their rights and when those

rights are abused. It should also teach them what oppression and marginalization are, how they

operate, and the effects on humans and society. The effect and the damages of colonization,

dominant masculinity, and patriarchal culture on women is problematic. Critical teaching would

also expose young men and boys at various level of education to new cultural values about

148

women and girls’ equal rights with men and boys in the society. Curriculum must be robust to

share today’s experience to prevent tomorrow’s woe and move to a better situation where the

voices and choices of women and girls will form part of policy and decisions in the society. This

will be dream fulfilling for girls everywhere to know that they belong to a community where

they live. This is will begin the process of change and healing the female students in my lecture

were anticipating towards their purpose of acquiring education.

Adult Education on the Operations of Gender:

This type of critical adult literacy is about changing perspectives of rural dwellers by

using African feminism frameworks that rejects all aspects of colonialism and current foreign

intervention propaganda of empowerment programs that does not capture the needs of the rural

dwellers. Rather the type of adult education I recommend in this study should embrace and

encourage issues that promote engagement in grassroots strategic thinking about empowerment

programs that will include the choice and voice of rural women. Such education would identify

and engage the potential of women towards transformation of the society, which is the focus of

STIWANISM, a strand of African feminism used in analyzing this study.

More so, men and women in rural communities should be exposed to such education

about inclusive community development. This probably will be a step towards a change in the

perspective of men and would place a better value on the potential of women towards a

transformed society.

Implications for Theory:

Some of the key issues identified in STIWANISM, the theoretical framework for this

study include involvement of women in social transformation and personal development which

would translate to societal and sustainable development. Another is that women’s choice and

149

voices are those that represent the bottom platform for designing and conducting an effective

empowerment program. STIWANISM as a strand of African feminism has been validated

through the research findings of this study as against other strands of African feminism, that

women’s voices and choices are very key to any empowerment programs if this would be

effective in making impact at the rural and to a large extent in the urban. It is essential to

establish that approaches that void the interests and participation of beneficiaries in

empowerment and development interventions may always not have direct impact or be

sustainable in the community. Sometimes it benefits and advances the donors gains and interests.

Example of this is the Coca-Cola and its engine program in Nigeria which ended up in recruiting

almost all the girls in their program as agents selling coca cola products which may not be the

desires of many of them. This implies that theories for analysis of women’s empowerment must

consider the involvement of the women in planning, designing and operations, to be sure if such

programs meant the well being of the recipients of such benefits.

Future Research:

Grassroots empowerment programs thrive well when the program design aligns with the

traditional values and needs of the communities where the recipients have shared values,

understandings and socioeconomic needs (Wesley & Dublon, 2015). These should be the focus

of scholars to show that grassroots empowerment is contextual and must consider the dynamic

contextual needs of the communities and the beliefs of their inhabitants. More so, the

socioeconomic status of the rural women is not static as development and advancement goes

onto the rural areas. Therefore, there should be studies that would know how those

infrastructures be woven around the empowerment of the rural women according to their needs

150

and interest and ages. The interest of the younger women may be different from the older women

in terms of use of technology for empowerment despite they live in the same rural area.

Future studies should focus on sustainability of programs and growth of women in terms

of becoming who they want and their progressive development.

151

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APPENDIX

INTERVIEW PROTOCOL

This protocol was used for all participants that is; the women, the facilitators/organizers

of the programs, community leaders or members (usually men) and other stakeholders but

adapted to meet each category at the point of asking to suit the interviewees. This was done in

any language most comfortable to the participants but most of them was conducted in local

language and audio recorded.

*Tell me when and how this mat weaving skill acquisitions empowerment program started in this

location?

Why did you join this program?

Tell me how this mat weaving center operates?

Describe how the operations of this mat weaving center is benefiting or not benefiting you?

How are your experiences with the leaders and policy of the mat weaving skill acquisitions program?

What are your expectations of this grassroots empowerment program?

Describe the changes this program has brought to you?

Tell me how this program is affecting your relationship with your partner?

Tell me some of the challenges you have faced /facing by participating in this program.

* Tell me your experience as an organizer this program?

*Tell me your experience as donors to this program?

*Tell me your experience as leader/ (member) of the hosts community of this program?

What do you consider the strengths of this program?

What would you consider as the short fall of this program?

*If you were the organizer/donor/participant of this program, what would you do differently?

Describe the unity or division in the community by this kind of empowerment program for women?

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Describe the support or opposition of the men in the community to this grassroots program?

Describe the contributions or lack of it by the local government of the community to this grassroots

program?

*These questions are specific to the highlighted research participants

A. DEMOGRAPHIC QUESTIONS:

These questions were asked orally from all the participants and pseudonym were used in all

analysis.

1. What are your names?

2. How old are you?

3. Are you married? If yes…… what position in marriage are you? 1st/2nd wife?

4. What is your level of education?

5. How many people live with you in your household?

6. When have you been involved with this program?