By Abuchi Obiora
In drama-like displays that effectively compared with the scenes and acts of Nigerian home video series released for public entertainment by the celebrities of Nollywood commercial drama industry, Senator Godswill Akpabio, the Senate President and one of his female colleagues at the red chamber of the House of Assembly, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan took the center-stage of the public media space during the past weeks to thrill Nigerians with a real-life movie that if simulated, recast and marketed, will be a masterpiece and a best seller movie script. That real-life public display of shame was not only to the chagrin of Nigerian men but also to the embarrassment of a nation that stood still to watch the abuse of power by the leadership of the Nigerian Senate.
I will briefly recount the highlights of the scenes of the shameful drama that were cast within and outside the now dishallowed floors of the Senate chambers of the Nigerian National Assembly in order to throw light on issues of national importance from the point of view of a feminist who believes that the human society will fail in all its efforts at perfection if equity is not employed to harness and utilize the immense treasures that are hidden in the woman, for the advancement of the human society.
But before I do that, I must say that I owe nobody any apology to hold the opinion that I express in this discourse, an opinion borne out of observation, study and analysis for three decades, an opinion which I have investigated and corroborated with events in human society having sought and obtained instructions from different knowledge perspectives including from arcane and forgotten knowledge perspectives.
Before we get into the gist of this discourse, let us first recount the story of Senators Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan and Godswill Akpabio as were published by the Nigerian media houses. How did it start? Nobody actually knows when and how the fight between Senators Natasha and Akpabio started since Senator Natasha accused Senator Akpabio of sexually harassing her for a long period of time before the cookies crumbled. Suffice to say that Nigerians woke up one morning to watch video clips of Senator Natasha complaining about her new sitting position in the Senate Chambers as allocated to her presumably on the orders of the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio.
Within days, that seemingly mild altercation about Senate sitting arrangement spiraled into a full-bloom feud with Senator Natasha insisting that the ploy to take her away from where her seat in the Senate was located was to silence her and impinge on her capacity for full representation of her constituency within the Senate chambers. She mentioned occasions where the Senate President had requested her to gratify him sexually as a bet to allow her voice to be heard properly in the Senate chambers.
Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan insisted several times on different occasions that Senator Godswill Akpabio was deliberately making efforts to muzzle up her voice in the Senate chambers because she had several times rebuffed sex overtures and advances from him to her including monetary inducement, to take sexual advantage of her as a condition to make her voice to be heard in the Senate chambers.
By the way, with the accusation of sexual harassment by Senator Natasha to Senator Akpabio, the later, the President of the Nigerian Senate who is the Presiding Officer of that now (Dis) honorable, (Not) hallowed chamber, Senator Godswill Akpabio, has twice been accused of sexual harassment. The first of such an accusation was when the Senate President was the Minister for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). At that time, the Managing Director of the Commission, a woman called Joi Nunieh had accused him of using what the Managing Director quoted him to have said to be Plan B, an overt way of sexual harassment, to get her close enough to himself so that she will dance to his whims and caprices of enriching himself, his girlfriend, agents and cronies who were registered with the NDDC as contractors supplying different items and rendering different services to the Commission.
The similar accusation made by Senator Natasha on Akpabio seem to meet up the same template that manifested in the accusation by Mrs. Joi Nunieh. That template is what Nigerians will call the “rub my back, I rub your back” style of bargain to grant someone favour. In Senator Natasha’s case, she insists that the Senate President had offered her this immoral option as a precondition to make her voice to be heard if she ‘made him happy’.
Though circumstantial the Joi Nunieh collaborative evidence may be to prove Natasha’s allegations (unless she has more concrete, empirical evidence), Nigerians would say that “there is no smoke without fire”.
These were just the preliminaries because the feud was to attain more dangerous dimensions including a botched and dubious attempt to recall Senator Natasha from her representation of the Kogi Central Constituency of Kogi State, by agents suspected to have been paid, who were sent on a dubious errand of collecting signatures for the recall of Senator Natasha from the Nigerian Senate.
Before the recall process was initiated in Senator Natasha’s constituency, the Senate had mandated the Ethics Committee to look into the actions of the female Senator at the Senate in respect to the way and manner she presented her case in the Senate chambers to determine if she challenged the authority of the Senate President and either dismiss the matter or recommend adequate punishment commensurate with her offence.
The Ethics Committee of the Senate was to recommend what was regarded within and beyond Nigeria to be an attempt to kill a fly with the sledge hammer. Among other things, the committee recommended the suspension of Senator Natasha from the Senate for six months, withholding of her salary within the suspension period, withdrawal of all her security details within the said period and most curiously, an order to her not to present herself as a Senator of the federal Republic either within the boundaries of Nigeria or outside Nigeria.
As a layman who knows something about the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as variously amended and the extant internal laws, rules and regulations guiding the establishment and operation of the Nigerian Senate, I am at a loss to actually know the portions of these laws, rules and regulations that have been invoked to articulate these very wide punitive measures against the female Senator.
It is more difficult to decipher the malicious extent of these punitive measures by the male-dominated Nigerian Senate when one considers the absurdity that is the ‘command’ on Senator Natasha not to present herself anywhere in the world as a Senator knowing that Senator Natasha was not made a Senator by those male chauvinists but by the majority votes of hundreds of thousands of people in her Kogi Central Constituency of Kogi State.
Senator Natasha didn’t take these measures lightly, so she quickly went on missions of drawing the attention of some women groups around the world and proceeding further to the Inter- Parliamentary Union of the United Nations where she lodged a formal complaint of sexual harassment and abuse of her rights and privileges as a Senator because of her gender as a female.
Senator Natasha’s international appeal for rescue from male chauvinism in Nigeria has attracted wide media coverage around the world including the attention of the highly regarded, respected and revered media house, The New York Times, all of which groups have written favourable headlines on her behalf.
Meanwhile two separate cases have been lodged in Nigerian courts by Natasha for adjudication. While Nigerians and international community await the outcome of these court cases by Senator Natasha to prove her sexual harassment allegation to Akpabio on one hand, and challenge her suspension from the Senate on the other hand, I want to utilize the opportunity of this discourse to explore some issues that may throw more light on Natasha’s feud with Akpabio from the point of view of a feminist who sees the need to fully integrate members of the female gender in all matters in the administration of the human society either in Nigeria or elsewhere.
Wherever Senator Natasha went to tell her story, she was consistent that she was being oppressed in the Nigerian Senate, not given enough visibility to contribute her ideas on the floor of the Senate chamber because of her gender as a woman.
By the way the Nigerian Senate is made up of 109 representatives from their constituencies across the states of Nigeria. These representatives are three from each of the thirty six states and one from the FCT(Federal Capital Territory) which is accorded the full status of a state under the administrative leadership of a Minister for the Federal Capital Territory.
Amongst these 109 Senators, only four of them, about l.09 percent, are female while the rest 105 members representing about 98.91 percent of the Senate are of the male gender. Obviously, this is the first sign of marginalization of the female gender in the Nigerian Senate, politics and by extension the administration of the country.
This work is not interested in the statistics of women representation within the many strata of sectorial administration levers in the country since it is obvious that most Nigerian women, being suppressed, oppressed and neglected to the kitchen and ‘the other room’ (courtesy of former Nigerian President, Mohammadu Buhari), end up not pursuing and realizing their dreams as a result of the chauvinistic disposition of Nigerian men in spite of the fact that many women excel above their male counterparts in Nigeria in their professional areas of jurisdiction. So, in this discourse, we will look at the dangers in the relegation of women to the background and the consequent risk of incomplete development of the national human resource as a result of such a relegation.
All the issues Senator Natasha raised wherever she went complaining about the selective and punitive actions taken against her by the leadership of the Nigerian Senate point to the fact that the Nigerian leadership even at the Senate level do not take gender sensitivity in consideration as a veritable tool to attain a just and equitable society.
What is gender sensitivity? Gender sensitivity is the term used to express the ability to understand and initiate the effect of gender, (that is the effect of being born a male or female) on people’s lives, relationships, experiences and generally of people’s socialization in any human environment and act accordingly in response to that understanding.
Gender sensitivity recognizes inequality in expression of roles by individuals as a result of their gender as well as discrimination and disparities in access to resources and opportunities. By recognizing gender sensitivity as an undeniable factor in human socialization responsible for the attainment of equity and justice, deliberate efforts should be applied to create more equitable and inclusive environment where everyone in the society regardless of their gender has the same rights, the same opportunities, and the same respect.
Did Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan experience the same rights, the same opportunities and the same respect with Senator Godswill Akpabio in the manner their feud was handled by the predominantly male populated Nigeria Senate? The answer is no. It was injustice to Senator Natasha for Senator Akpabio to have presided over the Senate chambers in a matter in which he was the accused when a committee was appointed to look into the matter. That was oppression made bare, a veritable sign of impunity capturing gender bias.
Gender sensitivity in any society can be pinned down and tackled through addressing and preventing gender-based discrimination, observing and addressing harmful gender stereotypes and biases with a view to dismantling them, making sure that government and private sector policies and activities are designed to equitably meet the needs of both female and male gender without equivocation and using gender-inclusive language to address circumstances and conditions that may bear on both the male and female gender without deliberately reinforming stereotypes that give undue reference either negative or positive to any gender.
In the light of the above considerations, Senator Akpabio may be said not to be fair to Senator Natasha if everything Nigerians were told about him by Senator Natasha is true. It is on record that he, Senator Akpabio once used ‘club girl’ to refer to the personality of the female Senator Natasha and even ‘jokingly’ told her how her husband will be enjoying her as claimed by Senator Natasha.
It is unfortunate that the Nigerian Senate specifically, and the other arms of government in Nigerian civil service, the universities and other public places have not made deliberate efforts to respond to the worldwide awareness presently being created through gender sensitivity in order to achieve the broader goal of gender equality which signifies equal rights, equal opportunities and commensurate and equal outcomes for both the male and female gender. These are the three necessary conditions in male/female gender socialization without which the Nigerian society, nay every human society, may not achieve an evenly-distributed development.
In order to promote fair distribution of opportunities and equitable participation for both and female gender in opportunities-sharing in human communities around the world, a conference of the female gender was held in Beijing China in 1995.
The fourth World conference on Women which was held in Beijing, China between 4th and 5th September 1995 brought about the foreclosure of all the previous efforts by women around the world to stand firm and demand actions from governments around the world to take concrete steps in realizing the objectives of equal status by women with their male counterparts.
That conference pronounced and issued what is presently called the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a comprehensive plan to achieve global legal equality for both men and women in all areas of human endeavors.
That document which summarizes the pathways for the achievement of the purpose for which it was articulated is considered around the world as a key global policy document on gender equality.
Basically, the Beijing deceleration of 1995 is all about deliberate effort for the empowerment of women around the world through government policies and promotion of equality between women and men as a matter of human right of everyone and a condition for social justice, development and peace.
The Beijing women conference of 1995 was the largest assembly of women ever held by women on behalf of women. It was attended by more than 17,000 participants from around the world, 6,000 government delegates, over 4,000 accredited non-governmental organizations, a huge number of international civil servants from around the world, and about 4,000 media representatives who were invited to cover the proceedings from the conference venue and transit to the world.
How much has been achieved in Nigeria in the attainment of the goals of the Beijing conference since 1995 is a matter for speculation in spite of the fact that Nigeria participated in that conference and is a signatory to the declaration at that conference, but one thing is certain, if Nigeria has honestly implemented the policy directive of that conference which were duly endorsed by the official representatives of Nigeria to that conference, we would not have had the type of national embarrassment which trailed the feud between Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan and Senator Godswill Akpabio.
In ending this discourse, I must observe that it may be hard for us, the men, to believe because of the serial suppression of women by successive generations of men in the long history of human kind that women are superior to men as created by God and are actually the true and direct heirs and custodians of the earth as handed it over to them by God. As a matter of fact, women are ‘improved editions’ by God after the creation of man by God as also seen in the ‘improved editions’ of things made by man. This is attested to by the synchronicity of the special nature of women with that of the earthly elemental forces including the internal vibrations and pulsations like the lunar influence which bears commonly on both the earth and the women. Additionally, the human biorhythm as it bears on the women is more favourably disposed to women than it is to men and this enhances the affinity of women to mother earth more than the men.
The research, analysis and conclusion gotten in this regard from some lost and found ancient knowledge and other existing but veiled contemporary knowledge is explored in my book, “WOMAN: THE MYSTERY, THE SECRETS” (ISBN 978-978-961-351-9) written by Rabbi Abram A. ben-Uriel (a pseudonym used by me, ABUCHI OBIORA).
“WOMAN: THE MYSTERY, THE SECRETS” represents a paradigm shift from the way feminism is presently addressed in the world because it traces the fundamental issues in the oppression and suppression of women wherefore it puts more emphases on where emphasis should be put in order to address the issues and get it solved.
This paradigm shift, the perspective explored in the book, hopefully is going to inform a new understanding of the nature of women and their purpose to enhance the attainment of perfection on earth through continuously working and improving on gender sensitivity in Nigeria specifically and around the world generally.
Not until that time when gender sensitivity is taken into total consideration in the crafting of government policies and implementing them as crafted, such rancorous issues of oppression and suppression of women which blew up with the feud between Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan and Senator Godswill Akpobio will continue to once in a while, occupy the front pages of our newspapers.
ABUCHI OBIORA
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