Mrs Akeredolu who has also been nick-named Mama FOWOSO, Mama BRECAN, Mama DIGITAL and Mama Tennis in this interview speaks about how she has been able to succeed not only in these projects but also at the home front

Since you embarked on your various projects: FOWOSO, BEMORE and BRECAN, what has been your experience working on these projects and how much values have these projects been to the people of Ondo state?

When you evaluate the impacts of these programmes, I think it is better appreciated when such evaluation comes from the people. As a human being, you may think everything you are doing is okay but an outsider might have a different view about what you are doing and then draw your attention. So, it is always good for a second person to recognise this value.

BRECAN for an example, looking at the various people who have benefitted from the fund,one can beat her chest and say yes, we are making impact in that regard. These are women who were diagnosed with breast cancer and the thought of where to get money is a serious issue and here we have BRECAN that is saying okay come, even if we cannot give you all the money, we can at least give you the money for the very critical part of the protocol of treatments before going for surgery. That is very important because when you have breast cancer, the primary thing is to remove the disease from the breast before any other treatment.

So, we make sure we provide money for the surgery after conducting various tests to determine the stage of the disease; we cover all these and also cover chemotherapy. So, most of the time, we would have given the individual eighty percent of the money, so we say okay why can’t we go to other people too to also support. We have files of several people seeking for help for their treatment. From that, if anyone says you are not doing anything, I know that breast cancer patients can testify that BRECAN has touched many lives.

We are also creating awareness because that is very important. Many do not understand that it is the hospital they suppose to go if they observe anything, not going to the herbalists or prayer mountains. We always emphasise that awareness is key because our people need to know. The word ‘cancer’ is scary. But then, we always tell them that it does not necessarily kill but they should do certain things at the right time. People should know that breast cancer does not kill when people detect it early. When you find that lump, that painless lump, make sure you go to a doctor. Do not let people change your mind that you should go to one man or woman of God to start doing vigil or go to the mountain for marathon prayers , that is what we have been seeing here. A painless lump at times is cancer. We have also seen many survivors, it is better to stay alive than allowing it to grow and become severe. After going up and down, you will still end up in the hospital. That is why the awareness is very important.

Then, on BEMORE, this is the season of BEMORE. The success story has been very huge, I do not even know maybe I should concentrate on BEMORE than BRECAN, because it has been so beautiful looking at these girls in a joyful mood because some will even tell you that they have not been to Akure before, it is unbelievable. All the participants from Ilaje, Isua Akoko and many other areas, when they came, they feel so excited and eager to learn. Elizade has provided for us a very conducive environment to learn as well as the PSTI.

Within two weeks, these girls have been virtually transformed. The amazing result we are getting from BEMORE is great. This gives me the hope that we are grooming a different generation of Nigerian women. This year’s programme is very exciting and really beautiful. Some other states were even in the camp, so we have a kind of beautiful relationship. This is the third year and people in other states are already aware of BEMORE and we are also trying to reach out to more states as well. We want our daughters to experience this magic. This year, we have participants from Imo, Ekiti, Akwa-Ibom, Enugu and Kogi states. But in comparism, Ondo State remains the major force anyway.

In the last two years, how many people have benefitted?

We have 700 in Ondo state and 50 in Imo state, altogether, 750 but this year we have 250 participants. The beauty of the programme this year is that we have more states here, Ekiti came with large contingents, you know that the First Lady attended the closing ceremony last year and they were dazed.

You seems to have preferred the girl-child participating in BEMORE, is it because you have more faith in the girl-child?

Not necessarily that I have more faith, but rather because we need to empower the girl-child, build the girl-child, mould her so that she could be recongnised that she has potentials and that she should not be limited by any barriers set by the society and these barriers I would like to mention one of them that states that women are supposed to be in the kitchen, doing house chores. That is the way the society has packaged the girl-child right from the time she came out from the womb. The society has dictated to her that this is how you should talk, live, when men are talking you should not interfere , when you have visitors, only your husband must be there, you dare not put mouth, as we speak. These are still happening. But I can tell you that these my girls, you cannot do that with them because they have come to the BEMORE world with endless opportunities, so we are opening doors for them in other world they were not used to.

Why should a woman not contribute to the socio-economic development of her society? Has anybody even bothered why we are not moving forward? If half of your population is illiterate, what do we do? Not all these women are educated, go to the villages, you will discover that most of our women are illiterates, forget about what you see in the cities if all women are not literate ,then such a country needs improvement in the lives of the citizens. Though, men are the heads but what we tend to realize is that we are still backward because the family structure is barely literate, that is the problem that people failed to recognise. These women want to take over, we need to improve the lot of our women in the society to even advance and that is one of the things we are trying to do in FOWOSO. One does not necessarily need to go to the university or bag PHD, but our women need to have that basic education and skills to register a profound impact on their lives. An educated woman will have few children, will know that she needs to go for anti-natal care; she does not need to go to those churches that have maternity homes to deliver babies because when they have a bridge or bleeding, it will be too late most time before carrying her to the hospital.

I cannot imagine my daughter patronising traditional birth attendant (Agbebi) that is what illiteracy brings. We need to empower our women. Any woman that is empowered whether through skill or education will contribute her quota to the development of the society. That is what FOWOSO is trying to do in terms of skill acquisition for grassroots women. When she has a steady income, she will not be selective of her children that will go to school, all of them will go to school and even that are how you open up a family that is how a family becomes educated. Now you cannot expect an illiterate woman that her husband has four to five wives breeding children all over the place to do same.

Since you commenced these programmes, what major challenges and support have you received?

The major challenge I have experienced to be honest with you was that some people resisted change, but if I were somebody who is not in the development sector, I would have given up, because they told me you do not do it this way, but I cannot do it the same way the previous administrations have done it or how other First Ladies have done it.

It was a little difficult to penetrate and convince them that let’s try it this way, we can have a better result, we have to try something else because I have come here with a different package.

...contd

Because I am also in the civil society, I understand these things, I understand the dynamics, I understand that when you want to do something different and people resist change, what you do is to keep on trying to win people over. Like when we started BEMORE, heaven let loosed but I knew that was the mentality of people who are yet to be exposed to appreciate what is going on elsewhere. But like I said, I have travelled widely and I had close encounters with people that really matter in this world. I know that when you talk about development of humanity, you may take or need to look at bigger pictures. For instance, early this year, a group of US based medical professionals, consisting of doctors, nurses came all the way from San-Diego to help our people. They paved their way, free of charge. It is not as if they are very rich like Bill Gate, they are regular people, imagine staff of a Nigerian university paying for tickets to do such with their salaries. Therefore, we are different kind of human beings. The leader had earlier asked that what could they do to support the programme of my husband, I said you know me now, l am in health. Apart from the supplies and everything they brought, they even had lectures and workshops at the Akure Specialist Hospital and UNIMED hospital.

I told you that I am also promoting young people in Tennis ,so I am also “Mama Tennis.” Volunteers came with bags of shoes, rackets and so on, so when I received that kind of support from people that do not know me from Adam, all this resistance, I just ignored it. And they are coming again in February even bigger. They are now coming with Oncologists in breast and cervical cancer. They now have a bigger team coming in February because when they came the first time we were very hospitable to them. In a way, we are also polishing the image of Nigeria that is terrible outside the world.

A lot of women said fund has been a major limitation to their aspirations to contest political offices? Is this true?

It is very true and it is because of what we have in this country and even in Africa in general, how the society rates women, you oppress us, you beat us, you abuse us verbally. A woman that does not have an income and the husband bought a car for her, when they quarrel , the husband will remove the tyres or even collect the key because she is totally dependent on him.

But I think it is changing now because I know the generation of my daughters, they will not agree. It is true, they won’t and that is why we have a lot of marriages hitting the rocks. I keep saying that it is the responsibility of mothers and grandmothers to really begin to change approach of raising their sons, let them be compassionate, let men have emotions. You know if a man is crying, they will say are you not a man? Why are you crying? Those are the things they made them to understand. You know masculine is all about being tough all the time, if you are married and anybody sees you helping your wife in the kitchen, there will be problem, they will say she has turned him to a houseboy. Women are the ones saying it to their daughters or sisters-in-law.

Let there be paradigm shift because you see men as our cover does not mean a woman should be helpless. Like I said, by the time we begin to recognise the fact that women have a role to play in socio-economic development of the society, you will give them space to be themselves and maximise whatever potentials they have. If it is their careers, they should pursue it without running away from marriage, even this day, there are some women who said that they will not marry but make babies to take care of because of such happenings ,so the society give our women that space to be themselves, making their own money and supporting the family. When it comes to politics, if she wants to venture into it, at least she will have her own money, even though you still need people that will support you, but at least you will have something. In our society, they will say give forms to women for free, I kicked against such, I said you people are joking. Why should that be­­, if you are contesting a position, if they are paying one million, pay it so that they will not be demeaning womanhood. Like I said, you have this political gang up against women, even your brother will not say you are his sister, there must be something about the menfolk, you will be shocked. When I write my memoir about my experience in politics you will see it. In politics it is like we have a different tribe of men and tribe of women and you see that the disparity is obvious.

What has been your experience since you became a First Lady?

I think it is a mixed grill. It is challenging, it has always been. You know you are dealing with human beings when you think that you are doing the right thing, people will criticise, you know arm chair critics, when you say come, let us have a debate, they do not have anything to say, some think oh, she think that she is all that. We didn’t vote for you, we voted for your husband and he is the governor and what they failed to realise is that I graduated in 1977, let me say I went to the university when you must have credits at a sitting, including English language and Mathematics. I keep on emphasizing that when my mates did not get admission, they began to travel to America. That was the standard of education in the 70s, so anybody that went to the university during this time, you can call that person ‘smart’. When we sat for the entrance, we still came back to write the final selection. Papers were not set for only men, same thing happened during classes and examinations, it was for everybody but you now come out in the bug, it’s a different bugging and that is why some of us who are self professed feminists can understand it, because we are talking about how the standard of education was. We were equal with our mates because we were smart. So having graduated at that time, I still went to Philippines for my Masters and for somebody to now think that I do not have an opinion, I think that person must be joking and that is why they think women must be swept under the carpet. During my own generation, I do not know about others but at that time, it was highly competitive for you to be in the university in the 70s. University was an international standard.

There were certain things you were doing before you became the First Lady which you would not be able to do any longer, what are those things?

With my education and status, you do not expect me to be a First Lady that is inside the bedroom, that is what I want to correct. People have said that even the First Lady has opinion, people are shocked that the First Lady is on social media, I was there before I became the First Lady, I had Facebook account, I had Twitter, LinkedIn, even though, I am no more doing that, why should I not? I made it clear that if you come to my page to insult me, I will fire back. I am not limited, and some of them have come to realize this and now when they attack me they do it maturely. Initially, they thought they could do otherwise, but they now realised that you cannot mess up with this First Lady, you cannot. We need to put people in their lanes, let them maintain their lanes, respect others, you cannot just come to the social media to insult people. For instance the other time, I took my FOWOSO women to go and inspect the state industrial hub which everybody should be excited about, there was this confusion that was it a visit or an inspection, it was funny. Today, I am very close to one of the critics. That has really strengthened me and even propeled me to do more. BRECAN has been in existence 20 years before I became the First Lady.

How were you able to blend the challenges of being an activist, First Lady, mother and wife?

I am a grandmother too, (laughs). It can only happen to somebody who is restless; I have been restless all my life. My husband will tell you that. That has been my life, like I said, I am expected to even get slim but I am adding more flesh I said I cannot believe this. What happen is that some of these programmes when I see the successes, I feel so happy.

Do you still do house chores, cook, go to the market, do you shop?

How can I (laughs). You want to kill me, not now. You know that the responsibilities are huge but I know that if Aketi and I go back home, he is not a man that will be lying on the bed, we do things together, but here I must be honest with you, which kind market (laughs) there is no room for that, there are lots of responsibilities.

How will you rate the achievements of Mr Governor?

Me, not me, it is the people of Ondo State that will rate him but I can say that he knew what he wanted to do before he even attempted to run for the post , because we are a couple that communicate with each other effectively, and that is one of the thing that is responsible for the success of our marriage. I am not saying that we are perfect, marriage is not always a bed of roses but the ability to talk to each other and express our opinions, it got to a stage that we said why are we in the comfort of our room and we are complaining about Nigeria, what can we do and that was it. So he knew what he wanted to do and like he keeps saying that God has blessed him, what more could he ask for than to serve his people and I know that he is also somebody who, when he is wishing to do something, he will accomplish it no matter what. He is a man of his words, if he tells you he will do this, he will do it, and if he tells you he will not do it, forget it, don’t even bother to pressurise him. People have always said that he is not a politician because he will not lie. It is left for the people to access him, not me as his wife but I know that he also has this philosophy that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. He is spreading out his developmental programmes. There will always be A before Z so people should exercise patience. He will do whatever he can to make sure that everybody has the feeling of the government. The only demand is your support and when you feel something is not okay, say it in a constructive manner not in a damaging form or making an apple become a banana because when people peddle rumour and say this is a banana whereas it is an apple, in no time people will believe that it is a banana not an apple and that is what is obtained in political landscape not only in Ondo State but everywhere. But I know that once you have good intention, you may not please everyone because there are people that are professional oppositionists. They will never see anything good in you, but when you have the majority appreciating the little you are doing, what else, so it is the Ondo state people that will rate him not me.

Your advice to the people generally?

My advice is for the people to support him. There is no doubt about it, Aketi means well for the state and he is a man that is contented, he is not materialistic, he is a very simple person. So, everybody should exercise patience, everybody will get something from this government. We must start from somewhere, just like the example of ABC I used earlier, so those that might be Q,R,S, it will still get to their turns but when you start agitating unnecessarily, I think it is not healthy for the system. He was also a student activist and likewise myself, I have been an activist all my life. We all know that sometimes, you need to agitate or lobby. When I wanted government to consider building a Cancer Centre, because the centre to get quality care is UCH Ibadan, but if we can have that here they will not need to travel a long distance. A state like this can take care of such and what do we do, we carried our advocacy to the House of Assembly to let them see the reasons. It is also part of activism, and you must do it in a civilised manner, in a constructive manner, trying to convince people. For example, some of our patients that we supported for their treatment were also civil servants and they had not been paid their gratuities and these are people experiencing life threatening diseases, you must have the compassion to consider them. Last year’s World Cancer Day, we marched to the State ex-Head of Service, Akinkuotu, he said he had never seen that before in his life. I said “we are here, you have to commit yourself,’ I will, I am ‘and he repeated after us because that was the theme of last year’s World Cancer Day and behold, it worked .The women’s files were fast-tracked. That is what we can do for these women, they need money to do extra treatments because when you have cancer, even your diet changes, it is not every food you can eat and that cost money and we will continue to appreciate him for doing that for us. That is activism in a civilized manner, if we had carried placards and said ‘We no go gree o’ we decided to burn tyres, it won’t make much use. But there are other activism that can require us to burn tyres like rape, that one ‘We no go gree’ we can carry placards. We condemn rape in its entirety.

Madam there is money. That’s why. Nothing else.

Sorry I cannot stand this woman, she is the reason why people won’t vote for Aketi this time around. Igbo my foot why can’t she develop her own potopoto state oloshi

jafol:
Sorry I cannot stand this woman, she is the reason why people won’t vote for Aketi this time around. Igbo my foot why can’t she develop her own potopoto state oloshi

Hate speech

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