When Malala, Rihanna United for Girls’ Education
Robyn Rihanna Fenty of Barbados and Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan are two of a kind. These two females are of different epochs and geography but in terms of charisma and the passionate drive to fast-track the educational emancipation of the girl child globally, they are like birds of the same feather. The two witnessed tumultuous childhood. Rihanna as a teenager reportedly turned to singing as a release from her troubles at home in Barbados. She formed a girl group with two classmates. When the duo was 15 they scored an audition with music producer Evan Rodgers, who was visiting the Island with his Barbadian wife. Rodgers was awed by the precociously beautiful and talented Rihanna, to the unfortunate detriment of her two friends. Less than a year later when Rihanna was 16 years old, she left to move in with Rodgers and his wife in Connecticut. She thereafter blossomed into an internationally acclaimed pop star.
Whereas Rihanna is an international pop star who has achieved fame and fortune, the little Malala on the other hand, is a child rights activist who escaped assassination from her native land because of her zeal for education, to win the Nobel prize for peace and has made phenomenal impact in the area of campaigning around the world for the educational empowerment of the girl child.
Rihanna lives in the United States from where she travels around the world to spread happiness through her musical talents but again, she has gradually become a champion for girl education.
Rihanna has through her numerous melodious songs and advocacy activities carried through a vigorous global wide campaign for the educational empowerment of girls. Malala, has also become a world’s ambassador for child rights with specific focus on the thematic mandate of education.
Malala is known to have traversed all continents of the world to preach the sermon of education for the most disadvantaged persons being the girl children especially in the developing communities of Asia, Middle East and Africa.
These two inspirational feminine characters have made the right news in the last couple of days. Whilst Malala left the comfort of her abode in the United Kingdom to visit Nigeria, Rihanna took off from her United States’ base to pay a working visit to France where she met the wife of the newly inaugurated French President Mr. Emmanuel Macron.
It must be noted that Macron’s wife is a professional educator. On the other leg of this developing story, we must note that during her whistle-stop visit to Nigeria, Malala met with the Acting President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo and the thematic area of their consultations was on the education of the Nigerian girl children.
Nigeria has the notorious reputation for being home to the largest population of out- of- school girls globally. Malala has over the last two years paid considerable attention to the cruel fate faced by the over 300 kidnapped school girls of Chibok community school in Borno, North East of Nigeria who were abducted and enslaved by the armed Islamic terror group known as Boko Haram.
Malala was herself a victim of cruel gun attack by the armed Islamist in her native Pakistan called Taliban from where she was airlifted to United Kingdom whereby she got a rousing welcome from the British people.
Malala Yousafzai during this visit said that though Nigeria is the richest country in Africa, it has more girls out of school than any country in the world. Malala has mixed up so well around the World and is attending some of the best educational faculties in Britain and so she is current about statistics such as the one she brandished depicting the sorry state of girl education in Nigeria.
It must be observed that girls and women are disadvantaged not just educationally but also in terms of income distribution in Nigeria.
This pathetic situation made the education activist to meet, during her visit, girls displaced by the Boko Haram crisis during which time she said studies are clear that educating girls grows economies, reduces conflict and improves public health.
She said, “For these girls and for their country’s future, Nigeria’s leaders must immediately prioritise education.” This is even as the United Nations Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF) education response in the northeast remains critically underfunded, with just 54 per cent of the $31.4 million appeal received, leaving a funding gap of $14.4 million.
While in Maiduguri, the epicentre of the crisis in northeast Nigeria, Malala visited schoolchildren in a camp for displaced families and secondary school girls at Yerwa Government Girls School.
Over 2,295 teachers have been killed and 19,000 displaced and almost 1,400 schools destroyed since the start of the Boko Haram insurgency in 2009. Three million children in the northeast reportedly are in need of support to keep learning. Emmanuel Onwubiko,www.emmanuelonwubiko.com
What the Federal Ministry of Information fails to grasp is that a spin is not dishing out half-truths and utter lies, but it is just what it is meant to be: putting a “wingspan spin” on the truth. Since truth is a universal absolute, mankind would naturally and eventually gravitate toward this absolute. Actually, the problem with the world today is that mankind is caught in a web of deceit, half-truths, and outright lies that its various cultural influences has bestowed on it and the honest will to confront its falsehood façade is a fear that mankind cannot face and thus poverty and arrested development continue to thrive. This is why the narratives around Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State and Femi FaniKayode are receiving positive raves because Nigerians, like all other humans, yearn for the truth even though the establishment would want us to believe in Utopian Nigeria.