By Morenike Taire

At the inauguration ball for the investiture of the first female president of the National Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), Iyalode Alaba Lawson, her brother was one of the various individuals- both male and female- who had glowing tributes to pay to her.

According to him, his industrious sister and he had once gone out looking for work to support their mother, who was not aware of their plot. There was a house that was being built somewhere in their Abeokuta neighbourhood at the time. It was an eye-catching house, according to him, and it was clearly owned by someone of means.

Books

Upon enquiries, they found the house was owned by a woman who only went to Abeokuta at the weekends to supervise the building. They waited patiently and the following Sunday, they approached the foreman with a request for a job on site.

The latter, as the story went, asked them to wait so he could ask the permission of the owner of the building, who was around and wanted to meet them. On stating their mission, the owner of the house looked at her (Lawson) in shock and exclaimed; “you want to work too, a beautiful girl like you?).

The then 12-year-old school child had answered in the affirmative, but the house owner would have none of it and had ordered the little girl to come and sit beside her while her brother got to work.

The crowd at the dinner had gasped as the narrator revealed the identity of the house owner: “That woman was none other than Iyalode Bisoye Tejuosho!”

It was the beginning of a most mutually rewarding relationship between the two women, one which lasted until the death of Tejuosho, and even far beyond as it now transcends generations. The legendary Tejuosho, the great industrialist and philanthropist who was well beyond her time, took the little Alaba under her powerful wings and nurtured her, while ensuring she was properly educated.

Now, more than ever, the idea of women empowerment has produced more questions than answers. While an incredible amount of awareness has been created and continues to be on the need for women to attain independence as adult human beings capable of looking after themselves as well as their offspring and society at large, there has barely been a concomitant growth in the number of women who actually fit into this category. This is the situation the world over.

Every year, governments, inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations spend millions of dollars running conferences across the globe whose sole aim is to confer about the wretched state of womanhood in most parts of the world. Others who hold economic conferences have now made it the norm to speak about the other half of the economy, which has not been nearly fully tapped into. All manner of nomenclatures have sprung up with all kinds of philosophical connotations.

Yet women the world over remain under virtually the same level of burden, with new causes of oppression springing up, particularly with rising levels of insecurity everywhere.    The abuse of the girl child both sexually and physically has risen to unprecedented levels.

It is becoming all too clear that conferences and complaints are not going improve the lot of women. What will work is what has always worked for us in our society in the past- traditional mentoring of women by women, particularly in the context of financial and sexual empowerment, the nutshell of all a woman needs to live a happy and fulfilled life.

Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) boss Onikepo Akande loves to tell the story of her maternal grandmother, Iyaafin Janet Alatede Aboderin, who was an extremely successful business woman in Ibadan in the 50s and 60s, so much so that though barely educated, she owned one of the most valuable properties in London at the time, as the legend goes.

While women like Bisoye Tejuosho had little formal education, they held their own on any terrain, whether in the market or in the boardroom. They build factories and ran homes; they raised children, their own and relatives’ alike. They also had interest in politics, statecraft, younger women and the organization of society in general.

If we truly want women empowerment as modern Nigerian women, we really need to be dusting up our History books.