Mrs. Betty Anyanwu-Akeredolu is the wife of the Ondo state Governor, Oluwarotimi Odunayo Akeredolu. She is the founder of the Breast Cancer Association of Nigeria (BRECAN); a non-profit organisation that champions awareness campaigns on breast cancer. She is also an aquacultrist and philanthropist. In this chat with ENE OSANG, she speaks on BERCAN activities and the status of women and girls in Ondo and Nigeria in general
First Ladies are known for their pet projects, what is your pet project?
For now, I am working hand in hand with the ministries and agencies. I like working with what is on ground and not starting up several projects.
I have an NGO, the Breast Cancer Association of Nigeria (BRECAN), which has been a fiercely independent NGO. BRECAN started 20 years ago before my husband was elected governor of Ondo state and I don’t call that a pet project or agree for people to call it a pet project as Ondo state first lady. I ensure my input can be seen in ministries and agencies where I see a gap.
For example, I am very interested in women in technology but I found out that this is a nonstarter in Ondo state because nothing was on ground.
The first programme I organised was in ICT for girls in Ondo, where we partnered with cooperate organisations to offer the training and the girls went home with tablets after the training.
Let me state here that the office of the first Lady has no budget, but the position is quite influential. You can attract cooperate sponsorship because people want to do business with you that you won’t have to spend any government money, so you can leverage on that position to get things done. That was what I did with the programme on ICT, and banks bank-rolled and took care of everything.
We also trained girls in solar technology because girls are not in these areas. We encourage the girls to take education more seriously and before you know, many of the girls will go into ICT. There is a huge gap in fact, a gully in the ICT because it is a man’s world, that is why programmers who are females are very few and same with solar technology.
We can leverage on the things happening in other parts of the world and girls over there are involved, these girls don’t have two heads yet they are doing well so we must encourage our girls in this direction.
Why did you set up BRECAN?
I am a breast cancer survivor for 20years now and counting. In 1997, I was diagnosed with breast cancer I went through the treatment and survived and I decided to start the organisation to raise awareness on the disease because a lot of women are suffering and can’t even get help. I have been a survivor for 20 years and counting and I taught I couldn’t just sit and not do anything about it and that was why I formed the association.
How do you get the funds to support these women considering you said your office has no budget?
Like I told you, BRECAN has been established long before my husband became the governor of Ondo state, and that is why I said it is not a pet project neither do I allow people to call it my pet project. What we do to raise fund basically is crowd funding. We always throw it to the public to support the organisation with a little money they can afford say like N200, and people could even give more if they so wish, and the money we realise we use to support women.
I did crowd funding in Ondo, it was successful. I went to Imo and did same, and it was a success as well.
Aside funding, what other challenges do you encounter running BRECAN?
The major challenge is the belief that as a first lady I have so much money. People just feel that the state treasury is in my bedroom, not knowing the office has no budget. I got tired of saying I don’t have money to give, so we started doing crowd fund raising and it is a success. It is working and we are supporting lots of women with the money we raise.
I come from Imo state and we also launched a chapter of BRECAN there successfully but like Ondo state people don’t drop money easily, so we decided to do crowd fund raising as well. I knew even with that people will not give money so we initiated the idea of making people win prizes donating.
We had this Shoprite vouchers and so we put it out to the public to buy tickets and afterwards there was raffle draw. We had 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes as well as consolation prices and many people bought the tickets, they won prizes at the end of the draw and we raised money to support women with cancer.
So, this has been our strategy of raising funds. We cater to every Nigerian suffering cancer with the breast most especially those in the rural areas.
The Ondo state government has been accused in some quarters of marginalising women in appointments. What is your take on gender equality in the state?
When it comes to gender equality in Nigeria as a whole, not just Ondo state, it is a nonstarter. If you are in a position you will think everything is okay for everyone but when you get to the community that is when you get to feel the pulse and real status of women, not in the town or cities. For a typical Nigerian man in the village a woman is just there right on the floor.
We need to be serious with education of women, and I think being serious is by changing the status quo and there should be a paradigm shift to make education of the girl-child a priority.
A lot come along with the education of women for example in health; an educated woman will know when to go for ante natal care and value it, they will know the importance of breastfeeding and so on, so it is very important we took the education of women seriously.
Are you saying it is not really important for women to be in politics/governance?
Talking about politics, for a woman to make impact she must have good grasp of what she is going there to do, else, you just be in politics as a bench warmer, who will only just claim allowances to build houses and travel abroad without making any impact, and that is what is happening.
Education is eye-opening, when girls see that women are not well represented they will ask questions. For instance, some girls have never heard of women in ICT but after our summer training, they began to ask questions in fact, what we have put there is like a university of life. We make them ask questions about things around them, and that is how we groom politicians.
Do you think gender equality is achievable in Nigeria considering the decreasing number of women representatives in government?
Gender equality is achievable if women try more in advocacy and not pay lip service to equality matters.
This should begin in the homes by parents making sure both sexes are treated equally. Let the boys do chores as much as the girls do; boys should wash plates too, they should clean their spaces, they should do their laundry and ensure the house is clean. Not when girls are doing all these, the boys will be playing football.
I never let my male children play while the girls are busy with chores, everybody participates and today their wives are enjoying. So, generally, youths must be sensitised to recognise the importance of women in the society.
Women’s role in the society should be recognised and should not be seen as dormant like African culture has made it so by still seeing women as a piece of furniture to be discarded whenever.
There should be more female faces in gender struggle, there should be more reawakening among women, more women should cry out about the disparity in gender while they continue to seek for support from men.
To confront social challenges, you must know what the problems are, we appreciate the men who support gender equality and women must work hand in hand with them.
It is very important we identified those issues that made Nigeria rank 125th on the global gender ranking and pursue those issues focusing on one after another. Even if it is on one area we should put more commitment and make impact with it in the society.
