Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire: Beyond Affirmative Action
If the Athenians of the First Century A. D. were around today, they would surely be heading for Lagos State in Nigeria to observe at close quarters the uncommon mode of populist governance so far initiated by the administration of the ruling Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN.
Both secular and religious records bear witness that these ancients Greeks “spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or hear some new thingâ€.
Thoroughly drilled in the philosophy of the great triumvirate of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, the citizens of Athens were said to roam around the city-state seeking something novel. Visitors were mostly welcome only if they came along with strange ideas. It was a path dictated by Socrates who had lived centuries earlier.
“Socratesâ€, a British historian writes, “… was … a familiar figure in the marketplace, questioning the citizens of Athens, convincing them of their lack of knowledge, leading them to realise that only lasting foundations of any community are truth and virtue and earning a reputation for wisdom which has lived and will always lived…â€.
In this case our friends the Athenians would particularly be interested in Lagos State where ACN has again picked a female in the person of Mrs. Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire as Governor Babatunde Fashola’s running mate for the April 2011 poll.
It is a radical choice because it suggests a three-fold view in a society where the men folk have a dim opinion of women.
First the choice is exceptional, (even if we’ve had women deputy governors in recent times) because it brushes aside a stereotype that points at men as helmsmen in politics. Orelope-Adefulire is coming into the scene from a proven background.
She is the current Commissioner for Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation in Lagos State. In this capacity she evolved a guiding philosophy critical to the welfarist mission and vision of ACN, namely the empowerment of women, children, the disadvantaged and the reduction of poverty in Lagos. Her achievements are gargantuan within three years.
She initiated the training of over sixty thousand (60,000) grassroots women and men. They were involved in short skills and vocational training in cake and snacks production, soap and pomade making, insecticide manufacturing and hat craft amongst a host of others. The grassroots women are known as housewives and jobless in the past.
Establishment of 17 Skill Acquisition Training Centres across the state to bridge the gap of graduate and school drop outs and other categories of unemployed in the state several have since graduated to establish job centres both as self employed citizens and employers of labour. The point to note is that if Mrs. Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire had not intervened with her forward looking policy, these freshly-empowered citizens would probably have been denizens of red-light districts in the state.
The number of skills or trade offered at the centre in long term basis include photography, hairdressing, barbing, refrigerator/airconditioner repairs, welding, shoe making, and lithography, sewing, fashion designing, catering/hotel management, tile laying and interlocking stones production, vulcanising, wheel alignment, etc. The programme which started in 2005 has nine thousand (9,000) students yearly with free tuition for the children of the poor.
Mrs. Orelope is a mother, friend of the grassroots women, and the counsellor of the hopeless, a true politician and selfless individual. She gave hope to the hopeless youths who would have been dead or miserable and now have hope. They are now becoming hopeful, responsible, reliable and economically empowered through her laudable programmes.
The commissioning of homes/clinics for children with disabilities is another feather to her cap as hopeless mothers who are either dead alive or depressed can now have relief and take their children to the for examination, treatment and recreation and peace will return to some homes in the state. Or they would have been unleashed on society as parasites, pests, petty thieves and all-out hardened criminals wreaking havoc on the people. Imagine the cost of that on the budget of the state and on the security apparatus!
Secondly, Mrs. Orelope-Adefulire’s choice raises hopes that the Fashola administration is serious about its determination to empower the grassroots contrary to the view that the government is elitist. Truly her presence as the second leg of the Governor’s office would elicit unprecedented public trust in the government since the people know that they have one of their own right in the powerhouse, as it were.
Thirdly, we must see Mrs. Orelope-Adefulire’s popular selection beyond a mere fulfillment of the so-called Principle of Affirmative Action. In the first place, she earned it on account of the excellent performance she has posted as commissioner in the Strategic Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation Ministry. Another point is that the world has moved on since the Beijing Declaration of 1995 which called for at least 30% allocation of public or political office to women.
The new thinking is no longer about the sheer number of women in power. It is about qualitative representation of the fair sex in the administration of politics, the economy, sports and the indeed all strata of society. It is about having women strutting the corridors of power.
For too long, we’ve run our society along malecentric lines that have only stunted full progress and has made nonsense of our huge expenditure on manpower and infrastructure.
A wider and deeper involvement of women in the affairs of society especially at the apex realm of politics as indicated in the choice of Mrs. Orelope-Adefulire means engaging a critical sector of society in nation-building.
It is a new thinking we must embrace and support if society must move on to new heights of advancement in the 21st century. The so-termed Asian Tigers are making it because they have leveraged politics and governance for women over the years.
We must all identify with Mrs. Orelope-Adefulire as she steps on higher ground in Lagos State. She is coming along with a package of motherly instincts needed to hone Governor Fashola’s paternalism.
•Mrs. Alabi is a teacher in Lagos.
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