11/12/2022
The Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has been named one of Forbes’s 100 Most Powerful Women in the World in 2022.
She and Ebony life CEO, Mo Abudu were the only African women on the list, and this honor comes a year after Ngozi was named one of the most influential people on earth by the popular Times magazine.
Let me digress:
Africa's richest man has three daughters: Halima, Fatima, and Mariya.
Dangote had no son as a child; I am not sure he is keen on having one.
He embraced his three daughters as a special gift from Allah and is grooming them to take over the running of the global family conglomerate business, the Dangote Group, from him when he is no more.
The three of them were sent to the best schools in the world and are today business executives with the Dangote Group.
Halima, the first child of the three girls, works more closely with her dad than the other two.
She sits on the Dangote Cement Board and is also the one managing Dangote Foods for her dad with the Indian guy who is the CEO.
Dangote has never looked down on his girls or seen them as an inferior gender.
They are worthy, just like the male child, so he is not desperate to have a male child.
And most importantly, he sent them to the best school in the world.
Ondo's First Lady Betty Anyanwu-Akeredolu once shared a story with me about how she refused to marry when her friends and classmates were getting married in primary school.
Her saddest memory till today was coming back from holiday break to see that her deskmate is no longer coming back.
She had been married off by her parents, who believed her existence on earth was tied to marriage and childbearing.
But for her, she wants to go to school and was persistent with that choice.
Today, that decision has paid off.
She is the First Lady of a state and the most influential personality in her community in Emeabiam.
The other time, I was at Owo, after her mother-in-law was buried.
Some members of her community were singing her praise with the song, "Nwanyi by ife."
It was touching to witness.
What if she did not go to school?
What if she had dropped off to marry?
Like her peers at that time did.
I have written severally about Tony Elemelu and the special relationship he shares with his first daughter, so there is no need to repeat the story here, but the point is that Tony is grooming Oge to succeed him and not his twin sons, and rightly so.
The point of this intervention is simple: just like Madam Betty, just like Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, just like the Dangote daughters, they are living fulfilling, impactful lives today.
Because they were sent to school by their parents, the investment is paying off today as their lives are a blessing to their families, community, and individuals who come across them.
Former President Obj shared a very sad story in a hall where I was about how his younger sister was married off when he was sent outside the country as a young military officer for military training.
She was deprived of going to school because of her marriage.
Your guess is as good as mine about the outcome of her life.
A man in my community in Ogbunike gave birth to six girls and refused to send any of them to the university.
They stopped at the secondary school before they were bundled off to their husband's house.
Again, your guess is as good as mine as to the kind of men they married and the outcome of their lives.
Don't be those parents who only see the girl child as a gender fit for s*x, marriage, and kitchen duties.
Don't fail the little girl child that God gave to you by refusing to send her to school.
Girls who receive an education are less likely to marry young and more likely to lead healthy, productive lives.
They earn higher incomes, participate in the decisions that most affect them, and build better futures for themselves and their families.
Girls' education strengthens economies and reduces inequality.
As a people and a country, failure to give the girl child a qualitative education recycles poverty from generation to generation, just as an empowered, educated girl child lifts her family and community out of poverty.
A poster girl for this is Linda Ikeji and how she lifted her whole family out of poverty when she struck it rich from blogging.
Congratulations to Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and to the parents who made conscious decisions to give their girl child the best education their income could afford.
You have this, and history will forever be kind to them.
Happy Sunday.
