When Kano ‘First Lady’ celebrated Women’s Day with a difference

For six uninterrupted years in Kano, the International Women’s Day is celebrated to give priority to initiatives that enhance the welfare of the womenfolk in the state.

The event, one of the United Nations days observed every March 8 to commemorate the cultural, political and socioeconomic achievements of women, is put in place by the wife of the governor, Professor Hafsat Abdullahi Umar Ganduje. Although organised without splendour and spectacular events, it boasts of programmes that touch the life of an average woman in the state. This is largely because of her choice to remain down-toearth and possibly avoid a kind of self-recognition that is often pigeon-holed by a numerous fund-wasting publicity exploits.

Mrs Ganduje’s enormous admiration and appeal in the eyes of women have been obvious, most especially in places she visited during programmes that mostly aimed at women empowerment in the state, considering the number of women, young and old, on her convoy.

In fact, for her magnanimity, which knows no bounds, her family name - Gwaggo, which is used for father’s sister or paternal aunt, is being used by non-family members, as she is addressed as ‘Gwaggon Kanawa,’ literally meaning the paternal aunt of Kanawa.

She was also instrumental to the implementation of the national policy that reserves 30 per cent for women under the affirmative action guidelines. She also supports her husband’s policy to empower and promote the cause of women in the state as part of the administration’s civil service reform agenda.

Professor Hafsat sees the sweeping reform in both civil and public service as a win for women in Kano State. The reform saw the appointment of the first female head of civil service in the state. Also, of the 36 permanent secretaries appointed, 12 are women, in addition to the appointment of female special advisers, senior special assistants, special assistants and 44 female supervisory councillors and five female special advisers in all the 44 local government areas in the state.

Her life radiates astonishing self-effacement, total excellence, complete dedication and an admirable predilection for service to humanity in view of the spectacular pace with which she carried them along through a series of empowerment initiatives. In fact, her modest achievements can be judged and are supported by pragmatic evidence.

Apart from her initiatives to better the lot of women and children, each year, during the Women’s Day celebration or the International Day of the Girl-Child, Mrs Ganduje introduces programmes targeted at women and child welfare.

Generally, little is heard or known in the wider world of the life-enhancing activities of Professor Hafsat, through her husband’s project the Ganduje Foundation. Due to the demanding nature of his office, she now chairs the Foundation and ensures its smooth running.

Through the Foundation, Professor Hafsat has been able to touch many lives of the good people of Kano in various ways. Under her motherly guidance, she has been involved in many programmes carefully designed to give the people, women and children in particular that seemingly elusive and exclusive sense of belonging.

Under the medical outreach programme of the Foundation termed: Health Camp, which comprises a team of medical doctors, nurses and other auxiliary staff that go round the local governments, more than 480, 000 people have benefited. During the conduct of the exercise, beneficiaries with minor health problems are attended to and given medication, while those with serious complications are referred to the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital or the Muhammadu Abdullahi Wase Specialist (Nassarawa) Hospital, with which the Foundation is maintaining a retainership for further medical diagnosis and treatment.

The Foundation is also keying into the maternal and natal health care services for pregnant women and children under five. Under the programme, the Foundation has distributed hundreds of thousands of delivery kits to expectant mothers, particularly in the rural areas, while it has been instrumental in the establishment of two counselling centres to address stigma and enhance psychosocial support to rape victims by providing counselling services for at least two weeks, with a view to reducing emotional trauma caused by sexual assault.

As part of efforts to ensure rapid improvements in health and nutrition, the Foundation takes statistics of the needy, who are given food items, such as rice, beans and millet.

The Foundation’s free eye treatment programme for various eye ailments has so far handled more than 287,000 patients with glaucoma and provision of eye glasses in the 44 local government areas in the state; 25,000 others with trachoma, the leading preventable cause of blindness worldwide have been cured, while 157 others with impaired vision have also been treated.

With the zeal to hit the ground running on empowering women, she believes that the rise of women in a society is not the fall of men in that society but a means of ensuring that the society benefits from the strength and weaknesses of one another.

She unveiled various plans to institute more measures aimed at improving the participation of women on societal development across the state which has, successfully, brought smiles on the faces of many women, especially in the rural areas through various empowerment initiatives.

Under the Foundation’s initiatives, thousands of women have been trained in areas of trade or occupation and supported with capital, both in cash and materials to establish small businesses for self-reliance. The most recent intervention was the empowerment of 1,600 women who were given N10,000 each during this year’s International Women’s Day celebration. Just before the celebration, another 1,000 women were trained and given bags of flour, spaghetti making machines, wrapper, school bags and exercise books for their kids and working capital of N5,000 each.

The Foundation has been able to conduct various skills acquisition training for thousands of women from the 44 local governments on various trades that include tailoring, perfume making and other cosmetics production, video and photography, event management, tomato preservation and empowerment of women in various agricultural value chain technology, as well as many small scale businesses.

The training and empowerment programme has been conducted in 75 per cent of the local governments in the state. In each local government, 300 women are selected from each of the local governments, where they are given empowerment kits and a working capital of N20, 000 each at the end of the training.

The development strides in Kano State by the Ganduje administration leaves no one in doubt. The secret behind the trailblazing performance is that this administration is supported by a very strong and affable wife. As the popular saying goes, Behind every successful man is a woman.

Garba is the Commissioner for Information, Kano State