Amina Salihu
Nigeria
I respect the rights of others to choose and affirm my right to do the same.
I live in Abuja, Nigeria where I am a Consultant, Policy Adviser and Farmer.
As Coordinator of C4C, the DFID Coalitions for Change Programme (2007
April 2011), I facilitated the emergence of the Gender and Affirmative Action
coalition, designed a change champions youth internship project enabling
young women and men gain experience through working and living with
established mentors across government, civil society and the private sector.
I also designed a persons with disabilities project to lead a campaign from
charity to rights based approach on disability issues. I sit on the technical,
advisory panels and committees of civil society, private sector and government
initiatives including serving as the Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of the
Nigerian Women’ Trust Fund.
I am a feminist because I am committed to changing the condition of women
in Africa for the better. I abhor all forms of oppression. I respect the rights of
others to choose and affirm my right to do the same. I am proud of my many
identities as a woman, mother, professional, and spouse. I recognise that the
challenge is balancing them all and not having to choose between them.
Feminists in Africa are misunderstood. We face the challenge of communicating
our philosophy. We need to find the appropriate language and forms of
documentation of our philosophy so we can achieve our goal of ending all
forms of oppression with others. One way to do this is to cultivate honest
friends across gender and ideological divides- men, non-feminist women,
activists and younger persons. Where we are already doing this, we need to
sustain the engagement.
We must strengthen our inter-generational conversations. Feminists are a small
band and so face the danger of burning out. We must find young, fresh voices
to keep the struggle alive. A way to do this is to affirm and name our role
models, by writing their her stories and sharing that to motivate ourselves
and others to think feminist. We should also create an endowment funds to
engender research into women’s human rights and a greater awareness of
feminist as an academic discipline and philosophy.
As a feminist, every day presents a chance to give equal opportunity to
everyone especially women. In my work, I see every day, the indomitable spirit
of African women. Growing up it was a privilege to listen to my mother and
witness firsthand her love for all and resilience in the face of oppression. Her