Opinion

Making Digital Skills Meaningful to Girls and Women: A Journey to a Difficult Handshake and Conversation

Published

1 year ago

December 24, 2022

Malam YZ Yau

By Y. Z. Ya’u, CITAD

While discussing with participants of the Digital Livelihood for rural women and girls conducted by the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) and supported by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) in Itas, Itas-Gadau Local Government of Bauchi State. I was taken aback by the repeated celebration of digital systems as capable of providing jobs at home for women.

The aspect was that the potential for women to work from home is culturally non-disruptive and should be welcome. Most of the girls were happy with this. The training of film and video editing as well as digital photography in particular seemed to excite the girls more than anything. Some of them opined that with the cultural practice of having men celebrating weddings for example outside the house and women inside the country, women or girls who are skilled on film and video editing as well as photography could find ready-made market,
I can understand this as the girls live in the context in which the horizon of most girls is clouded by the ABU syndrome and all that all aspire to quickly get married and raise children. Independent means of livelihood comes a distant priority. The first time I came across the ABU was angry, why should all the girls want to go to ABU and not Bayero University, Kano. the university I was lecturing. My ignorance was revealed when one of them explained that ABU did not stand for Ahmadu Bello University but Aure Bautar Ubangiji (Hausa, loosely meaning “Marriage is a Worship of Allah”). For many of these girls, the first instinctive gut was that digital skills will enhance their marriage. Which is good in itself.

However, as the training continued to unfold, they began to imagine a different way of using their skills. Some see it as a means to improve their education, update and move to higher institution of learning. Some saw a window of venturing out into professions that they ordinarily consider outside their reach. For example, 22-year old Bilkisu Gambo Idris of Itas Local Government Area of Bauchi State explained that having learn a number different aspects of digital skills including website design, Coreldraw and Online Marketing, plans starts that her dream is to start an online business but due to the lack of capital is yet to start but the training encouraged and inspired her to further her education to the advanced level.

Hauwa Baffa Sulaiman of Itas community, aged 20 years described the training as an eye opener and the essence of her life because now she has started advertising her make-up business on the Internet especially Facebook and Instagram pages. Fauziyya Yakubu age 23, from Jamaare is now using social media platforms to advertise her digital skills to train other women at home. She has found an add up way of addressing the gender digital divide by driving digital skill lessons into the homes that were initially a block against further learning.
In the end, they came to accept digital skills not just as something that will make them better wives but also make them better human beings and living a meaningful and productive life. However, it will seem that in this logic, the emancipatory aspect of digital skill is undermined and subverted and re-directed by a patriarchal conditioning, making the question pertinent: is digital skills enough to address the economic and political marginality of women?

Clearly, women are politically excluded in the country. But more than even patriarchal control, the main factor for this is the economic marginalization of the women.

Women are relatively poorer than men and constitute the largest number of those living under the poverty line. It is for this reason that some researchers have referred to poverty as having a feminine face in Nigeria.

If the economic status of women can be improved, they will be able to engage as equal actors in the political realm and thus be in a position to address some of policies and practices that continue to hold them down. The poor economic condition of women has meant that they have a low affordability index for digital access.

Addressing the economic marginality is important to addressing the gender digital divide in the country. However, while it is a necessary condition, it is not a sufficient one.

The digital divide is not just about access and empowering women economically while important will not in itself solve the digital marginalization of women. And while skill is an important enabler, it too is not enough.

To deal with the gender digital divide in a subversive manner, we need to deconstruct cultural norms that inhibit the effective use of the digital technology by women. Surprisingly, the experience from the digital livelihood program shows a less controversial path in which two things worked out well.

First, men did not feel threatened by their daughters and spouses learning digital skills that will make them better partners to their husbands. In other words, seeing the seeming digital skills compatibility with cultural norms of the society makes it easy to break resistance and barriers to learning.

Second, once the learners get emersed, they get their horizon broadened. In this sense, there seem to be a double subversive appropriation of digital technology: first, patriarchy subverted the libertarian impulse of technology to drive it to domesticity.

Having accepted this, the girls then re-subverted this to go beyond domesticity and begin to make effective use of digital technology in ways that go to seed and enhance personal livelihoods for them, thus opening the way for independent means of livelihood and being active economic agents of their own.

Drawing from the above is the inescapable conclusion that bridging the gender digital divide is beyond addressing the four conventional pillars of awareness, availability, accessibility, and affordability. No doubt, we all need to be aware about what digital technology can do in transforming our lives and society before we can make the efforts to embrace it. Embracing it of course requires its availability, which is beyond individual choices or effort we make.

Government in particular has greater role in making digital technology available to the citizens, and particularly, to girls and women. What policies and programmes a government deploys to address availability will invariably play role in addressing affordability, though affordability is also beyond just technology policies because it is signposted by the economic status of the people. Finally, accessibility would include making digital education not just in the privilege colonial language of higher education but also in local languages that citizens speak and engage with so that they can see technology not as something external but as part of daily lived social being and a necessity. That means teaching digital skill in our first languages.

But more than anything, addressing gender digital divide will require an honest handshake across genders. This is because gender digital divide is part of the wider gender development divide and cannot be addressed in isolation of this wider issue. The exclusion of women in the policy spaces and other digital space spaces is not accidental. It is the construction and imagining of these spaces as masculine by patriarchy.

Addressing these requires understanding masculine fear of the internet.

Masculine fear about the internet is rooted in the reaction of men about the communication space that digital systems, particularly the internet have given to women. But it also seen in the fact while men think the internet will expose women to bad influence, they do not think that they too could be exposed to the same bad influence. Within the realms of power discourse, women who engage with the internet are demonized as wayward, of easy virtue and generally as “prostitute”, etc.
The handshake has to bring both men and women into a mutual dialogue on technology. Men and women should work to deconstruct the myths around the internet. Men and women should work together to discuss how the internet is a tool that can help rather than subvert family structures. Ultimately, men and women have to work together to overcome the constraints that patriarchy has placed before women in the use of technology. The handshake is not an easy conversation.

On the part of males, it signals acceptance to give up on some privileges while for women, it requires rethinking of normalized ideas.

The digital livelihood is one example of a handshake, a conversation involving parents, spouses, daughters, and other community gatekeepers. It allowed the fears to be on the table and in an open conversation, not on combating any social norm but on opening spaces for learning for girls to seek self-actualization. We need more of these conversations and handshaking to make substantive progress in closing the gender digital divide and ending gender digital marginalization in the country.

Opinion

Forte GCC Sets New Standards in Engineering, Construction, and Real Estate-Adnan

Published

5 days ago

May 14, 2024

Nigerian Tracker

Forte GCC raises the bar in engineering, construction, and real estate with groundbreaking standards, by Adnan Mukhtar

In a move that is set to revolutionize the engineering, construction, and real estate sectors, Forte GCC Innovative Solutions Limited has announced its commitment to innovation, sustainability, and excellence.

Since its inception in 2019, the company has established itself as a trailblazer in the industry, with a team of dedicated professionals and a vision to harness the power of technology to craft a smarter, more efficient world.

The company’s mission and vision is to elevate services through continuous research and innovation and to become a frontrunner in engineering consultancy, construction, and real estate sectors.

Led by Engr. Khalil Sagir Koki, a seasoned engineer and project manager with a proven track record of delivering complex projects, the company’s management team boasts a diverse range of expertise and experience. Engr Khalil has a Masters of Engineering in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Surrey and a Master’s of Science in Engineering Construction Management from the University of East London. Engr. Koki is a member of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, the Institute of Civil Engineers UK, the Institute of Highways Engineers UK, and the Association for Project Management UK, and has attained the APM Project Fundamental Qualification from the Association for Project Management. He also holds a Construction Project Management certification from the Colombian University of New York.

Other members of the management team include Engr. Emmanuel Adetokumbo, a COREN-registered engineer with over a decade of experience in building and infrastructure projects; Muhammad Gazzali Ado, a seasoned finance professional with experience in accounting, taxation, and financial management; and Mrs Misriyya Imam Hassan, a management expert with a degree in Management Information Systems from the University of Sharjah and an MSc from the University of Leicester.

The company’s recent achievements include the successful completion of Laurat Terraces, its inaugural real estate development project in Katampe District, and the commencement of two new estates, Misriyya Terraces and Guildford Terraces, in Katampe District.

With its commitment to safety, ownership, integrity, passion, and teamwork, Forte GCC Innovative Solutions Limited is set to deliver unparalleled results and shape the future of Engineering, Construction, and Real Estate in Nigeria and beyond.

Opinion

Ahmad Abdulkadir Firdaus :A Successful Business Man And Philanthropist

Published

1 week ago

May 8, 2024

Nigerian Tracker

Abdulkadir Ahmad Firadusi

By AbdurRaheem Sa’ad Dembo

The fascinating story of Ilorin born businessman but resident in Kano, Ahmad Abdulkadir Firdaus is the one filled with a rare commitment and tenacious disposition. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Aquarich Integrated Services, Hydro Blue Water and Habidaus Global Concept in Kano. Indeed, no businessman or an entrepreneur would ever tell you it is easy to be in business or self employed but he has been making remarkable progress against all odds.

It interests me to write about him because I have been in the know of how he has positively metamorphosed from being an employee to become an employer of labour in the commercial city of Kano. Firdaus story is not a fairy tale as those who know him can attest to his growth in the Kano business community.

Sincerely, it is through observation of him I got to know practically that you don’t invest in a business if you don’t have time to monitor it, otherwise you would be feeding the greedy and glutton among your workers inadvertently, and before you know it, the business has collapsed. They don’t want to know how you come about the capital for the business but they would be ready to drain the resources to comatose, since no one would be around to have critical monitoring of their activities.

Successful businessmen do have challenges and that of Firdaus is no exception, especially given the current stifling inflation in the country. You must have the courage and sagacity to pull through in business with sincerity and promptness.

There was a time I visited Kano, precisely February, 2022 to attend the 40th Anniversary of Mass Communication Department in Bayero University, Kano, my alma mater. I observed him in the office and I discovered that he has full grasp of what it entails to run a business. He is an economist, so one shouldn’t expect less from him.

He is very strict but pragmatic. His strictness cannot be likened to nefariousness but proper way of doing things. He doesn’t cut corners. He will never bargain for substandard products.

As an entrepreneur you have a goal, but it should be predicated on your customers satisfaction. Without them your business will face retardation and sluggishness. That is why when you agree on a day and date for the supply of goods, do not renege. Customers develop confidence in someone based on their experience over time. If their experience is positive you are in for a good time with them.

Discipline as a core value in any setting, be it political, social or economic, will help anyone to grow; especially in business, financial discipline is key. To the best of my knowledge, Firdaus has it and his prudence is a great deal of idea.

*My relationship with Firdaus*

We are both from Ilorin but we didn’t know each other until we met in Bayero University, Kano. Although we gained admission the same time, he was a year ahead of me because his was a direct entry. Since graduation, the relationship has been sustained till today; alhamdulillahi! He is a thorough person, he neither receives ideas and/or opinions nor treat issues dogmatically. It takes a sound and convincing explanation of a subject matter to get him on the same page with one.

Our good friends, they say, are our lives. At one’s lowest hour, one must have that one person in whom to confide. This is reminiscent of Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter in which it is said “confiding in others always pain”.

Our relationship has transformed beyond friendship, it is now a familial bond. I can remember when I attended his wedding in Kaduna in the year
2009 and he reciprocated by attending my wedding in Ilorin together with his wife, an epitome of a good wife.

He is based in Kano but his door is always open to visitors. You can’t visit his family without giving a good account of their hospitality and humility. Great men are synonymous with humility and that has been my conviction over the years.

*His Philanthropic Activities*

He is a finest gentleman with a kind heart and generous disposition.He does not have a Foundation through which he reaches out to the less privileged because he believes giving to people is a personal thing and does not require publicity. His argument has been that he is doing it for the sake of Allah, not for people to praise him, and that getting a reward for doing good is preregative of Almighty Allah.

This is unlike politicians; there is no way they can keep in secrecy if they render assistance. If they don’t say it out, oppositions would use that against them, that they have neglected the people after gaining their mandates. So it is easy for him to do it in his own way, because he is not a politician.

There are cases of where he has helped and those people would be the one to tell me much later. If he helps you the third person would not hear about it. Emphatically, he has been kind to me as well.

Ahmad Abdulkadir Firdaus does not allow his busy schedules to deprive him of the opportunity to reach out to people through associations. He is currently the Vice President II of Bayero University Kano Alumni Association, the national body. He is also the Vice Chairman of Ilorin Emirate Descendants Progressive Union (IEDPU), Kano Branch. He is a Patron of Ilorin Emirate Students Union, BUK Chapter.

He is a detribalized Nigerian; his hand of fellowship spreads beyond his tribes and associates.

*His business sojourn*

Firdaus joined Royal United Nigeria Limited in Lagos State in 2007. He was later transferred to Kano office where he rose from the position of Accounts Assistant to become Regional Manager, North. In his words “I joined Royal United Nigeria Limited in 2007 through my Guardian, Dr. Abdullahi Jibril Oyekan”

Ahmed Abdulkadir Firdaus was born to the family of Alfa Ahmad and Hajia Halima of Ile Machine, Oju Ekun Oke, Adangba, Ilorin and grew up at Sebutu compound, Ilorin. He had his primary and part of secondary school education in Ilorin before proceeding to Lagos where he completed it. He is happily married with kids.

Below are his Educational background, Awards, and excerpts of the interview with him.

*Academic Qualification

In 2005 he bagged B.Sc. Economics from Bayero University, Kano with second class upper. He also obtained Master of Business Administration (MBA) in 2011 from the same institution. In 2006 he obtained Proficiency Certificate in Management and graduate member from the Nigerian institute of Management.
He became an Associate member , Institute of Chartered Economists in Nigeria (2006).

*Awards

Award of Excellence by Ilorin Emirate Descendants Progressive Union, IEDPU Northern Zone, 2023

Award of Excellence by BUK Alumni, Ilorin Emirate chapter, 2023

Award of Excellence by An-nur Islamic Organization, BUK, 2021

Award of Excellence by Ilorin -Ifelodun Social Group, Kano, 2021

Markazul Ulum Wal Maharif Islamic School Dei Dei, Abuja, 2020

Award of Excellence by National Association of Kwara State Students, BUK Chapter, 2019

Award of Excellence by Ilorin Emirate Youth Development Association, Kano, 2019

Award of Excellence by Ilorin Emirate Students’ Union, BUK, 2016

Certificate of Merit by National Youth Service Corps, Corps Welfare Association, Giginya Barracks, Sokoto, 2007

Merit Award (Chairman Fundraising) by Ilorin Emirate Students’ Union, BUK, 2005

Merit Award (Financial Secretary) by Ilorin Emirate Students’ Union, BUK, 2005

Merit Award (Member Fundraising) by Ilorin Emirate Students’ Union, BUK, 2004

Merit Award by Markaz Agege Alumni Association, BUK, 2003/2004

Al-Adabiyya Alumni Association, BUK, 2003/2004

Merit Award (Active member) Ilorin Emirate Students’ Union, BUK, 2002

*Interview Session*

What do you sell?

I sell different types/brands/sizes of Tyres and TableWater (HYDRO BLUE)

What could be the catalyst for your success in the business world?

Determination, patience, and passion can drive a business growth.

Nigerian economic challenges are enormous, but I always tell myself that if Dangote can do it, I can equally do with determination.

What advice do you have for upcoming entrepreneurs?

Business requires pragmatism, goal-oriented, and target. Including the culture of discipline

At the early stage of business, they must be available (full participation), adopt austere approach, have some level of accounting knowledge, and financial discipline.

They should understand that there is no shortcut to success; Rome was not built in a day.

Is it always rosy for your kind of business?

Not at all, like the Yoruba would say, a person that knows the day he would make plenty of sales might know the day of his death. Is just a saying nobody knows when he or she will die. No one can determine the day he or she will make enormous sales. However, business is unpredictable, most especially in the face of the current inflation that has influenced price instability.

It is obvious that even in the business world there are challenges but your ability to cope with its complexity and dynamism will determine how far you would go. This doesn’t rule out the significance of prayers as you weather the storm gradually. Our young men and women should cultivate the habit of sincerity and patience. Nothing good, they say, comes so easy. Get-rich-quick syndrome can’t be a way out of poverty but the road to doom. Patience is key to every facets of our lives just as Hausa saying “Hakuri maganin zaman duniyan”. Meaning patience is the key to successful life.

Firdaus, as a businessman is an example of those who would do their businesses diligently and would not surcharge the people.

He is in Kano, doing his business with utmost standard and excellent customer relations. Please patronise him for a life changing experience.

abdurraheemsaaddembo@gmail.com

Opinion

Exposing the fraud in NASS budget-Jaafar Jaafar

Published

2 weeks ago

May 2, 2024

Nigerian Tracker

By Jaafar Jaafar

In an unprecedented budget fraud, the National Assembly has appropriated N370 billion on running costs, contingency, vague and duplicated projects for the Senate and House of Representatives in the 2024 Appropriation Act.

I’m not talking about the hundreds of billions of naira padded in other ministries, departments and agency, but what they budgeted for their welfare and running of the National Assembly.

In the N370 billion NASS budget, the lawmakers duplicated projects and created new, unnecessary projects that increased the budget from N170billion in 2023 to N370 billion this year.

In budget (under Statutory Transfers ), the NASS budgeted 36,727,409,155 for the National Assembly Office; N49,144,916,519 for the Senate; N78,624,487169 for the House of Representatives; N12,325,901,366 for the National Assembly Service Commission and; N20,388,339,573 for Legislative Aides.

A senator recently told me that each of them (and members of the House of Reps) is entitled to five aides, while the four presiding officers (Senate President, Speaker and their deputies) have at least 3,000 aides. In total, you are talking about over 5,000 aides!

Despite the foregoing, the NASS budgeted N30,807,475,470 for “General Services” and N15billion as “Service-Wide Vote” – known in administrative parlance as “contingency” or “security vote”. The NASS never had anything like service-wide vote in the past as “service-wide vote” is always exclusive to the Executive arm. Insiders said this is a clear case of budget padding as the purpose for the huge appropriations are vague.

Even the retired clerks and perm secs (despite receiving their pensions) are not left out in this public funds buffet as they got N1.2billion padded for them.

Apart from padding the intangibles, the NASS will spend N4billion to build recreation center; about N6billion to furnish committee rooms for the two chambers and; another N6billion to build car parks for senators and members (don’t ask me whether they lack any parking space).

And despite this, the lawmakers padded N30 billion in the FCDA budget for “Completion of NASS Chambers” and N20billion for “completion of NASS Service Commission”! In the same budget, the lawmakers set aside another N10billion (under NASS budget) for the completion of National Assembly Service Commission building! How did this happen? No be juju be dis?

Still hungry to devour public resources, the avaricious parliamentarians budgeted another N3billion for the “Upgrade of NASS Key Infrastructures”. How come? What about the N30billion budgeted for “Completion of NASS Chambers”?

NASS Library Complex, named after President Tinubu’s Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, got N12billion as take-off grant and another N3billion for purchase of books.

Like other institutions under NASS, the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies got N9billion without clearly stating how or where the resources will apply to. The same institute also got another N4.5billion (is this ‘jara’?) for completion of its headquarters.

Despite the dedicated powerline and powerful generators backing up power supply in the National Assembly, the lawmakers budgeted N4billion to install solar power system. I guess this will give them a reason to pad billions for the purchase of batteries every year.

The committee that superintended this butchery of public resources, the Appropriations Committees of the Senate and the House of Reps, got N200m each for a job well done.