Woman Affairs minister, Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, has an enduring predilection for rushing in where angels fear to tread. This is putting it finely. She also interprets her intrepidity as wisdom, and her instinctive passion to correct perceived wrongs as affirming her drive to sanitise all issues concerning women, in addition to curiously viewing every girl or female in Nigeria as part of her remit.

The news had hardly reached the public about the impending mass wedding of one hundred girls in Mariga local government area in Niger State when the minister flew off the handle and engaged in attack mode.

She had concluded that a grave wrong had been committed. She insinuated that the girls were underage, were being married off against their will, and perhaps because the weddings were to be sponsored by the Speaker of the Niger State House of Assembly, Abdulmalik Sarkindaji, there was also official seal to a constitutional infraction or to social and cultural perversity.

Characteristically and remorselessly, Mrs Kennedy-Ohanenye has spoken up another storm, barely a few weeks after she rammed her siege weapons against the Lead British International School affair.

On that occasion, and citing a few other needless interventions by the minister, this columnist had observed that Mrs Kennedy-Ohanenye had no sense of boundaries. Writing under the title Women Affairs minister and controversy, Barometer had on April 28 declaimed as follows: “It is not clear where Women Affairs and Social Development minister, Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, got her power to shut down the Lead British International School in Abuja over the bullying case involving some female students. Immediately the matter was posted on social media, the minister dived into the controversy and shut the school for three days until the matter should be investigated and possibly resolved. Shutting down any school in Abuja is supposed to be that of the Education ministry or the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). But Mrs Kennedy-Ohanenye is no stranger to controversy and impulsive actions and statements.


“Last September, she redefined sexual harassment in the University of Calabar case involving Cyril Ndifon, a Law professor and former dean, who is being tried for alleged sexual harassment of students.

She was forced by a coalition of 500 women’s rights group to apologise. Last October, she also threatened to sue the United Nations for not properly accounting for the monies sourced from donors for Nigeria. Of course she had no locus.
Then in February 2024, she admonished women to shut up when arguing with their husbands if the case was not to degenerate into violence. The ministry could defend the wives, but could not replace lost eyes, she said sarcastically.

“Mrs Kennedy-Ohanenye is clearly instinctive and impetuous. She will keep leaping from one controversy to another if no one restrains her.

But in the absence of the hilarious Dame Patience Jonathan, it is probably a great idea to have this Women Affairs minister in the cabinet to give the country comic relief and relive stressed ministers bent over by the tedium of their tasks. Hopefully, the president can put her on a gentle leash lest she traipse over her boundaries.”


It is unlikely the minister reads newspapers or minds public unease over her misbegotten interventions. Had she read the news as her public service requires of her, and had she possessed the capacity to be mortified by public rebuke, she would probably be more restrained rushing into public controversies, any controversy. But she is propelled on the wings of instincts.

This is probably why there has not been one major policy initiative or intervention from her that drew public acclaim or satisfaction; instead there has been a string of bungles followed by public dismay and incredulousness.

Her UN litigation threat is abandoned; her intervention in the University of Calabar harassment snafu ended in an apology from her; and her misjudged view on British International School is of course ending up in smoke. In all the cases, there was not one instance when she did her homework well before rushing into the fray.

In the Niger State mass wedding case, she simply followed the news and took umbrage, imagining that minors were being, perhaps ‘characteristically’ of the North, wedded off.

Hon. Sarkindaji has shot back in fury, denouncing the Women Affairs minister for threatening to sue him as well as reporting the matter to the police.

She could not know his constituency as much as he does, he fumed, and she could not know the background of the culture of the community and the orphaned girls as well as the traditional and religious institutions in those places.

He explained that his constituency had asked him to sponsor the weddings on the grounds of some of the girls having lost their parents to banditry or were too poor to underwrite the expenses of weddings. Indeed, riled by her presumptuousness, the traditional and religious elite of the community, under the aegis of the State’s Imam Forum, have given the minister a seven-day ultimatum to apologise for affronting their culture. They insist she must withdraw the suit or face legal action. The weddings will go on as planned, they roared, as more than N10 million had been raised for that purpose.

It is not clear how the administration views the minister’s impetuousness. If they are impressed by her needless meddling in extraneous issues, they should at least try to get her to do her homework well before rushing into an inferno. Yes, as this column said in April, she provides comic relief, but it will be more helpful to the administration if her farcical interventions don’t cost the administration an arm and a leg.

helinues:
Another late article to dent the image of the Minister of women affairs.

The state government involved have agreed to empowered the girls instead of marrying them off.

She won here while the writer is the loser

ganisucks:

What paper is the writer writing for?

If you have any grievances, don't forget to post it in your WhatsApp group.

chatinent:
Not my business. I'm focused on news that affect how I spend in Nigeria.

renythyly:

Oga dollars is 1,600 already what else

helinues:
Another late article to dent the image of the Minister of women affairs.

The state government involved have agreed to empowered the girls instead of marrying them off.

She won here while the writer is the loser