9jafeminista in October

9jafeminista has had a pretty busy Octorber, originally meant to be a bi-monthly publication, we have, so far, featured 9 stories, an average of two stories per week.

Ugo Chime

Our very first contributor was Ugo Chime, a public health practitioner who is passionate about being independent, her first story was ‘Forgiveness or Gini?’, during which she challenged the gender stereotype that women are the ‘softer sex’, she talked about how she learned forgiveness from her husband, who is supposed to be the ‘harder sex’.

The piece was followed by ‘An interview with Ugo Chime’ during which Ugo talked about her relationship with her dad, Maternal, Child and Neo-natal Health (MCNH) and the problem with Nigerian NGO’s and their funders.

Ikhide R. Ikheloa

It was not long after our interview with Ugo that the scandal involving one of Nigeria’s foremost bloggers, Linda Ikeji, broke. In which she was accused of plagiarism, and her blog was taken down for a while by Google. 9jafeminista noticed that out of the many voices baying for her blood, the men’s were more dominant, but a few people came to her defence, including the indefatigable trouble maker, Ikhide R Ikheloa, who pointed out that almost all the dailies online do the same and asked why the people who went after Linda Ikeji didn’t go after them, since they have been around for much longer. We then conducted an interview with Ikhide, ‘In Conversation with Ikhide: Lindagate Love and Feminism.’

Ayomikun

Following our Lindagate post was an interview conducted with a domestic abuse victim, Ayomikun. The interview was conducted in two parts, both are up on YouTube, the transcription of the interview was put up on the blog. Ayomikun took us through a harrowing tale of 12years spent in an abusive relationship. She talked about her many miscarriages, marital rape, and psychological abuse from a controlling man. Her story was titled ‘Yes to domestic violence: Why we should give up and give in (1)’ (and the video can be found here) and ‘Yes to domestic violence: Whe we should give up and give in (II)’ (the video of the full interview can be watched here).

Temie Giwa-Tubosun

Our next post was about Temie Giwa-Tubosun, one of BBC’s 100 Women of 2014, simply titled ‘Temie Giwa-Tubosun’ we put up her bio in order to provide our readers with a background to this amazing feminist. Following this was her non-fiction piece titled ‘Is this what a feminist looks like?’ She talked about becoming a feminist at the age of 10, maternal mortality and the right of a woman to do what she likes with her body, especially when it comes to their health.

In our usual fashion we had ‘An interview with Temie Giwa-Tubosun’, during which we talked about her One Percent blood donation project, reconciling feminism, God and lipstick, we briefly touched upon her adulation of Beyonce, and oturmapokpor – aka – love potion.

Briefly a member of falconets

Our last post was an editorial ‘Editorial: Who gives a damn about female footballers?’, which was an opening to the terrible conditions under which Nigerian female football players are made to play. We had an interview with Omolayo Adebiyi, whose career was brought to an abrupt end when she injured her knee. Her full interview can be watched here.

Phew!

Thank you all for visiting our blog regularly.

An Interview with Ugo Chime

9jafeminista: Can you tell us your major driving force?

Ugo Chime: I don’t know if I have a neat answer for this. When I was a kid, I hated how much I lacked even though I shouldn’t. I’ve already talked about my dad about my dad right? (check article here and here) And how he had money but he didn’t share it with his family. I hated that. I hated how little money my mom had. I hated how asking my dad for money (for what I considered necessities) turned into such big a production. How you had to beg and beg. Pray he was in a good mood, that he wasn’t fighting with mum, because if any of these conditions are in place, you won’t get a kobo.

I hated the begging. My god, I hated the begging above everything else! So I was eager to go out there and start making my own money, so I didn’t have to beg anyone for a dime. In a way, you could say that’s what has driven me, the phobia for being at someone’s mercy.

9jafeminista: mmmm

Ugo Chime: I want my own money. I never feel any money earned by my husband belongs to me, it’s his money, to do with as he pleases.

9jafeminista: Would you say you chose your career as a public health practitioner of your career chose you?

Ugo Chime: My first degree is in food science I wanted to do my masters in human nutrition, it was an aspect of food science I really clicked with, but after graduating from the university, I had to work, I was sick to death of begging my daddy for money. I was in a damn hurry to leave home for ever. I went to live with my sister and her husband, he’s a doctor and had an NGO. I started volunteering at his NGO, while looking for a job. When after 6 months I couldn’t get a job, he asked a friend of his whose NGO was more active, to take me on and pay me a salary, and that was how it began. Since then I’ve worked exclusively with NGOs.

Human nutrition was modified, with more knowledge, to an interest in public health nutrition, but it was rather narrow field. Besides, I became more passionate about women issues, maternal, child and newborn health (MCNH), I decided to focus on public health and as a wider field and health policy because I wanted to move from working with all these ‘oyibos’ who tell u what’s good for you, to working with national and state governments.

So, my big dream: to work with national and state governments in health policy, become a consultant to policy makers, get my PhD, maybe lecture…

9jafeminista: As somebody who has worked with several NGOs in Nigeria how would you rate their performance?

Ugo Chime: The international ones?

9jafeminista: Both the international and Nigerian ones

Ugo Chime: To be honest, Nigerian NGOs are far behind in what they could do, far behind, maybe that’s because I’m comparing them with UK third sector. There’s too much acceptance of the spoon-feeding by donors and the international NGOs, I would say it’s dismal.

9jafeminista: And what would you say about MCNH in Nigeria?

Ugo Chime: You know how bad our indicators are now, our maternal mortality rate is one of the highest in the world, we have a poor health system, we have the patriarchy, we have the poor proportion of girl child education.

9jafeminista: Would you say local NGOs are actually doing what they are receiving funding for?

Ugo Chime: They are, but that’s the thing! It shouldn’t be donors deciding what direction these NGOs should be taking. Of course there are others who aren’t serious, but these donors have strict accounting policies. So, when it comes to ticking off boxes, the local NGOs are doing it, Donor says train 500 men and women about the importance of hand washing, the local NGOs will bring you attendance sheet with probably 502 people trained. So, box ticked, but it doesn’t mean that’s what’s needed. It doesn’t mean that the training won’t die with the first set of people trained. That there is a trickle down effect.

It’s really for local NGOs to say, “No this is what is effective. This isn’t what will resonate with our people. Here and here ae what we really need.” That sort of thing

9jafeminista: Why can’t the local NGOs tell funders their methods are not effective?

Ugo Chime: They are doing it, just not on a large enough scale to cause a ripple effect. Not enough to get the donors to change their mode of engagement with the local ones. Right now, all the power is with big donors. They dictate the tune.

9jafeminista: If you were in a position to proffer a solution to the problems besieging Maternal Child and Newborns Health what would it be?

Ugo Chime: MCNH is complex, to be honest. It’s not like “he broke his leg, put him in POP, give the leg time to heal.” There are so many things contributing to the poor indicators. Things that aren’t easy to solve. We can say lets improve our health system. Let’s make healthcare for women and children free, because many women are poor. We could say make education free. There are so many things we can say would work but when it’s implemented it doesn’t, because new problems crop up. For example women don’t trust medical professionals, so make healthcare free as much as you like, but they aren’t going to come near a clinic. Make education free, but they believe an educated woman won’t get a husband, so they’d rather be illiterates.

9jafeminista: Would you say that there’s so much witchcraft going on that one could say it is the cause of the high figures in maternal and child mortality in Nigeria? This is because a lot of Nigerian women prefer going to churches or mosques, or through other spiritual avenues rather than hospitals.

Ugo Chime: I’d say the suspicion of witchcraft has been quite insane in leading to the death of many pregnant women. They refuse to seek medical intervention when things are going just awful during pregnancy.

They are going to prayer houses, pastors… whomever. Fervently believing someone is trying to kill them, that what is wrong is spiritual and so can be countered through spiritual means. Meanwhile things are getting worse for them, making it harder for medical intervention.

9jafeminista: Well, this can be due to the fear that medical practitioners are not spiritual enough to counter the attacks from the dark side.

Ugo Chime: I don’t believe in witches. I don’t believe in devil. I want to say I don’t believe in god, but am still undecided. I’m closer to not believing in god than in believing. So, the entire concept of witches is bullshit to me and I think people who believe in them are idiots.

9jafeminista: Would you say you don’t believe in winchis because you’re a feminist?

Ugo Chime: No. I know feminists who are Christians, who also believe in evil spirits, they may not think its exclusively in the form of females, they accept that evil can manifest as a female as well as male

9jafeminista: Who would you say has been the greatest influence in your life?

Ugo Chime: My father

9jafeminista: Please can you explain how?

Ugo Chime: Well, he’s a presence that looms over everything. Trying to escape him and his stinginess. Trying to fight his idea of how a ‘proper’ woman behaves. Marrying a man who is exactly NOT LIKE HIM! Trying to be exactly the kind of parent he isn’t, I dare say that till date I’m still trying to prove to him that I’m none of the things he used to say I am.