AMINA SALIHU

Amina Salihu is a political scientist and over the years she has carved a niche for herself in activism, as well as farming. She lectured at the Ahmadu Bello University between 1993 and 2000, and later worked for the West Africa-focused organisation, Centre for Democracy and Development. She was Senior Special Assistant, Social Sector, and, later, Information and Strategy to Nigeria’s former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai. As Strategy Advisor, Amina designed the Abuja Town Hall Meetings and the FCT Helpline for governmentcitizen communication and feedback.
In this interview with Yetunde Oladeinde, she talks about the things that spurred her, people she admires and gender as smart economics.

HOW would you assess affirmative action, 20 years after the Beijing Women’s Conference in 1995?

Not too bad, I would say. The first is that, we have been able to demystify the fact that Affirmative Action is a woman’s thing. Even before Beijing adopted it, it was something that was used to address issues across race in places like the United States for example. You have to ensure that people of Africa descent and non African descent had equity.

So what we did was to apply a gender lens to Affirmative Action and people understand that it is not new. For instance, the Federal Character Commission and if the president wants to constitute his cabinet now, he has to have at least one minister from each state. We are saying that it is fine, but chances are that all these ministers would be men. There are capable women in that community. So as we are thinking geographic affirmative action in terms of federal character, we should also think about gender. That is changing mindset and you can begin to see the changes. The private sector for instance has women on all boards.

The board of the Central Bank of Nigeria has more women than it used to have because there was a governor, Sanusi Lamido, who said we can do better. Even the political parties that we thought would never change, some are saying that for every three delegation there must be a woman. That is Affirmative Action; we are getting there gradually. What we have to do is to be consistent in our arguments and the second is that when we get there, we should use the space well. It is not as if the men are using the space well but it has taken us so much to get there, we cannot afford to make the mistakes they made. Now that we have a different kind of leadership, where is the hope? The burden is more on us, we really are pathfinders and we must continue to find the path.

How did the passion for activism start?

Passion happens as a result of life’s experience. While growing up, I had a lot to learn. I came from a working class background. I grew up very close to the barracks and I had to sell peanuts, eggs and everything that was seasonal to support my mother. The difference was that any time there was school, I dare not be anywhere else but on my way to school, long distances. The country was safer then and our parents weren’t afraid to send us to school.

You had to expend energy and that hardens you. I not only wanted a better life but didn’t want anybody to go through that kind of life. You grew up in a family where you see the men not treating the women well and you are powerless because you are not only a child but a female child. So when I got to the university, I connected to the student union and unionism and from there to the women’s groups that were made up of feminists.

They were people like Shameen; I was in Women in Nigeria (WIN) with Ayesha Imam and co. Everyone’s life in the women’s wing was connected to her in one way or the other. I knew that there was an option and they took me in and refined the ideas. From there, there has been no looking back.

Let’s talk about gender as smart economics…

Gender has to be looked at as smart economics, because a lot of the time people think it is just to push out justice matter. So, it becomes a bit more difficult to convince policy makers, especially men who do not have this women’s liberation reality because they are not women and do not understand why they need to plan with women or look out for them.

 Even to reach your own development targets, you need women; so it is two ways. Even when you do not focus on women, you need women because they are the ones who would raise the children that you are looking at as the future human resources; they are the ones who run the homes.

The second reason is that the women of Nigeria themselves make up 50 per cent of the population. How do you hope to make progress if you are not meeting the needs of 50 per cent of your population? Women are dying giving birth to children.

The national average for maternal mortality is 545 out of every 100,000, but you know that it is just an average. In the northern part of Nigeria, over 1500 women die out of every 100,000. Look at the conflict and how people are being displaced. Families have been decimated and women are everything rolled into one and you do not address their needs. How can the country move forward? Women are drivers of growth, whether in the family or in the community.

You are also a framer. How did this start?

I have always had a passion for farming. In secondary school, I had the choice between Home Economics and Agriculture. To be honest, maybe because I had always had feminism in me, I just couldn’t understand the trauma that I saw my colleagues go through. I went to an all-girls school, Federal Government Girls School in Bida. By the time they had the home economics class, there would be tension; they carried pots, plates, they were afraid that could fall, the food would burn or they didn’t finish on time.

I told myself this is what my mother has taught me, so why am I stressing myself all over again? So, I said that I wasn’t going to do Home Economics and the moment it was no longer compulsory, I was the first to jump that class. I figured that Agriculture was more interesting. I had never done it before and then it was still connected to food without the trauma. It was between you, the teacher and the land. We had the school farm. So you could plant a groundnut, you could do practicals and learn things in textbooks.

 I liked the idea of dealing with things that were special. Our teacher told us that everybody needs farmers. Nobody told us anybody needs cooks because everybody should be able to cook by themselves. In my final year, I got the prize for Agriculture and that spurred me because I was doing what I liked. The lesson I learnt here is to allow our children to do what they like, guide them to choose. Then at the Federal Capital Territory, I got talking with a colleague who told me it was easy to raise fish and I wanted to know more.

He said, ‘you have to go get water-logged land; it’s assumed it’s not productive land for housing, but you can go fishing on it.’ So, I said let’s go hunt for it. That was in 2005, and I incorporated a family company called Fawaz and Salamina. It got strong and there are three branches of the farm now. We have fish, chickens and rams towards the Ramadan period and the crops. The crops are cultivated, it’s an integrated farm and we use the crops as feeds for the animals. This year, you would find maize and soya beans on the land.

How has it been ten years down the line?

No regrets! It can be a heart breaker; there are good years and bad years, but when you are doing what you like and it is something that allows you to give back. We have a foundation where we assist young people and give them land free for five years. Give them fertilizers for free and connect them to the market, put them into a cooperative. Each farming season, they put aside a saving to make them independent in future. In the process, they have understood the government and how the system works. Today, we are talking to a microfinance bank in Kaduna and they have their bank accounts, they know how to turn agric waste to bricketts. I do that because I know I have a future dimension to myself. There is nobody that is self-made, somebody, somewhere gave the push.

Tell us about your role models

My mother would always be a role model because of what she went through. There are more women like that in the community, just doing their own thing and we don’t even know them. It’s a 24/7 job and it is thankless. Prof Bolanle Awe, just visited her at Ibadan, Bisi Adeleye Fayemi, as well as men and women that are doing great things. I also admire Governor el Rufai of Kaduna State and Kole Shettima, they have done so much for women.

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