Prof. Edna Matthews-Njoku- 08035056831
Recently, history was made in Nigeria as I watched one of us a Nigeria’s Amazon, an academia per excellence, a gender advocate, a humble and trusted aide of Mr President, the Honourable Minister of State I for Foreign Affairs; Prof. Viola Onwuliri was elected and inducted at Abuja the Federal Capital Territory as the President of the Global Power Women Network Africa, (GPWNA). At the well attended event held at the Transcorp Hilton on the 28th of June, 2013, which had in attendance, President Goodluck Ebelle Jonathan, wife of the Vice President of Nigeria, President of Malawi, Mrs Banda and President Helen Sirleaf of Liberia, Vice President of the Gambia, First Ladies of African Countries, representatives of presidents of the world, Ministers like Okonjo Iweala and others, international women leaders, who is who among the women of Africa and very many other important dignitaries from in and outside Africa, Prof Viola assumed duty as the second President of the continental body.
Global Power Women Network Africa is an African Non Governmental Organisation that is at the vanguard of helping to domesticate United Nations Convention for the Elimination of Discriminations against Women, (CEDAW) by being the advocate for women and Child rights, and sensitizing African women to take their rightful place for their socio-economic and political empowerment. GPWNA champions the application of the affirmative action of the United Nation as it affects the women of Africa. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the First Lady of Nigeria and Chairperson of African First Ladies Peace Mission, Dame Patience Jonathan, who has unprecedented record of championing the empowerment and appointment of women into key sensitive positions in government in Nigeria and in the African continent, of which Prof. Viola Onwuliri is a beneficiary.
As the President of GPWNA, Prof Viola, will network with Women for Change Initiative, the pet project of the First Lady of Nigeria, Dame Patience Jonathan which has done so much for African Women, to mobilize African women’s support for the Transformational Agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan, who has surpassed the 35% Beijing Affirmative action on appointment of women into key government positions. The President of GPWNA, Prof Viola is among the vibrant women of substance appointed into very sensitive government position by the present administration.
Global Power Women Network Africa is aimed at reducing maternal and infant mortality rate in Africa, fight against domestic violence on women and the girl child and to encourage the girl child education. The challenges before the erudite Professor of Bio-Chemistry, the Honourable Minister and President of GPWNA, is to combat the HIV/Aids pandemic in Africa as it affects women through advocacy and enlightenment and help prevent mother to child transmission of the deadly ailment and to rehabilitate victims of the scourge. The body fights against human trafficking and prostitution. It fights against forced and early marriage and rehabilitates victims of vaginal fistula disease occasioned by early marriage. Global Power Women Network Africa will rehabilitate victims of sexual and domestic abuse. GPWNA, sensitizes women to rise against negative cultural practices against female gender, and other social inhibitions aimed at reducing the dignity of womanhood.
Looking at the task ahead, it is only a mobilizer, a visioner, a progressive, humble and a team player whose loyalty and commitment to womanhood is worthy of emulation, that can rightly deliver to the African women. No wonder the entire African women found Prof Viola Onwuliri worthy to serve as President of the continental body. Prior to the present position as Minister and now President of GPWNA, Prof Viola has been at the forefront of assisting women affected by health and life threatening ailments. She championed as the supportive wife of the former late Vice Chancellor of Federal University of Technology Owerri, the educational and economic empowerment of women culminating in the appointment of many hard working, intelligent women of integrity into various academic positions. Prof. Viola is a great motivator of fellow women who will stop at nothing to ensure that a fellow woman gets what rightly belongs to her. She is a sincere lady who can feel the pause of others and always ready to assist.
At home, she is down to earth, a mother of mothers and champion of the youths who can deliver at any given time. Prof Viola is a round peg in a round hole as far as this position unanimously given to her by African women is concerned.
As an aide to Mr President and Honourable Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prof Viola has championed the course of the Transformational Agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan globally. The quality of Nigerian Diplomatic Missions and their positive impacts on our national interest can be associated with the tireless efforts of Prof Viola and the ministry to reposition our foreign policies. In collaboration and commitment to the United Nation and African Union resolutions, she has been a strong advocate and a believer that our First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, founder of Women for Change Initiative, has done so much for Nigerian women nay Africa and must be supported by all women.
It is my candid opinion that Professional bodies like NAWOJ, FIDA and other gender sensitive Non Governmental Organizations should rally round Prof Viola Onwuliri and collaborate with Global Power Women Network Africa in ensuring that issues affecting women are brought at the front burner of National and continental discourse.
No doubt a new dawn has come for the African women. There is optimism that Prof Viola will bring to bear, her diligence, dexterity, humility, sagacity, loyalty and team spirit in mobilizing the African women for the promotion of good governance, for the political empowerment of responsible women who will be considered by the quality of their brains and the strength of their character to serve in any capacity across the country and the African continent. At this point, without equivocation, I wish to say a little about the Professor Viola Onwuliri I know.
It was Harry S. Truman a former U.S. President that said; “A leader is a man who has the ability to get other people to do what they don’t want to do, and like it.” Professor Onwuliri is a benevolent motivator whose humility and sense of direction will no doubt ginger African women in the direction that is expedient, progressive, resourceful and result oriented no matter the challenges and at the end, African women will celebrate and be better off for it. That explanation of a leader rightly match the person of Prof Viola and that is exactly what the women of Africa saw in the Honourable Minister of the Federal Republic that caused her being reposed with confidence to lead them to achieve more affirmative actions.
Harold Wilson a former British Prime Minister, while referring to Harold Macmillan’s Final Term as leader of The Labour Government, 1974-1976, said; “A constant effort to keep his party together, without sacrificing either principle or the essentials of basic strategy, is the very stuff of political leadership.” Prof Viola like Macmillan was able to put herself together despite the tragedy that suddenly befell her last year, to play an exemplary role of a mother, a Federal Minister, a loyal party member and an ebullient scholar not compromising integrity, her principle of fighting for the less privileged and assisting indigent women and yet in tune with the basic strategies of repositioning the African Women in line with the international best practice. These qualities singles her out and justifies the mandate given to her by GPWNA
The person of Prof. Viola is a woman who has touched so many lives both male and the female folks. She has always encouraged up coming young ladies in the academics to aspire to the greatest height of their career and still remain focused to their roles as mothers and wives. These have made her a natural leader that young people are eager to follow her direction. In my life, as a professor, I emulate John Banham, a British Business Executive, who while referring to recruitment in the Independent (London) in 1940 noted; “As well as good academic records I look for people who’ve climbed mountains or been captain of the tiddlywinks team at university. People who other people will follow.” That kind of personality Banham searches for is what I have found in Professor Viola Onwuliri that I call on all my fellow Nigerian women and Africa to join Prof Viola in ensuring that the aims and objectives of the Global Power Women Network Africa are achieved.
Another quality that distinguishes Prof Viola is her listening and consultative disposition to the rational and logical opinion and counseling of others. Like Sima Guang a Chinese writer said; “Even though a ruler may be wise as a sage, he must humble himself and yield to others. Then the intelligent will offer him their counsel and the brave will exert themselves to the fullest for him.” The president of GPWNA, Prof Viola in her many years in the university community exhibited extraordinary humility that made it easy for her to mobilize women when occasion demands. The African women who gave her the responsibility of leading them are willing to exert their energy to ensure her success both as a Minister of the Federal Republic and President of the continental body. Women of substance from across Africa will offer her their counsel and show loyalty because she has shown loyalty to the President and Commander in Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and in other spheres of service to humanity.
To Professor Viola, like François Guizot, a French statesman and historian, who Upon Benjamin Disraeli’s appointment as leader of the Conservative Party in France wrote him a letter which read in part; “I think that your being the leader of the Tory party is the greatest triumph that Liberalism has ever achieved.” I say to you that your being inducted as the President of the Global Power Women Network Africa, is the greatest vision, triumph and a new dawn that the women of Africa have achieved for themselves. As you champion the course of women, I know that one of your cardinal objectives will be to produce more women leaders in Africa. Your pedigree speaks volume of this your desire. Many academics in the various universities you have been before your appointment as a minister owes their rise and strength to your morale boost. No wonder your life has exemplified Ralph Nader a U.S. author, lawyer, and consumer activist maxim that; “… the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.”
With people like Prof Viola, I am proud to be a woman. Julia Neuberger a British Rabbi, author, and broadcaster while comparing men and women said; “a man thanks God for not making him a woman and the woman simply thanks God for making her as she is.” Women of Africa should rise and support one of their own as she brings a new dawn to the long struggle of women for socio-economic and political empowerment. We should thank God for making us who we are and stop playing second fiddle or being praise singers to men folks in politics. The African First Lady Peace Mission Chairperson and founder of Women for Change Initiative, Dame Patience Jonathan is a model in Africa and has been a strong motivator of our own Prof. Viola Onwuliri in her service to our Nation.
Some of our male counterparts in the past have erroneously tried to discourage women but since the emergence of Mr President, Dr. Ebelle Goodluck Jonathan, he has demystified C. L. R. James a Trinidadian writer, political theorist, and educator’s observation that; “A new type of woman arises. She is called a career woman … because her ‘career’ in modern society demands she place herself in a subordinate position or even renounce normal life.” President Goodluck Jonathan sees Nigerian women as partners in progress who should take positions of responsibility. This vision of Mr President and the efforts of Dame Patience Jonathan recognised leaders like our own Prof Viola. Prof Viola like William Shakespeare’s reference of Othello’s wife, Desdemona in his play Othello, “O CASSIO Our great Captain’s Captain,” Prof Viola is the great Captain of African women. For that fact, I admonish African women like Euripides a Greek playwright. Said; “A woman should always stand by a woman”. Women should eschew envy, jealousy and support their fellow women to rise. Women should improve beyond the mere chorister’s role. ‘Oge agaala Mgbe nwanyi n’abughi Ihe,’ time has gone when women are not considered as consequential
I sum this effort by recalling what Nawal El Saadawi an Egyptian novelist wrote in The Nawal El Saadawi Reader, “Women in Resistance: the Arab World”, that; “ Arab unity is a goal and Arab women’s unity and solidarity are important weapons in fighting for the liberation of women and of our land and economy.” The unity of Afrian women and their solidarity with Prof Viola Onwuliri and Dame Patience Jonathan will surely be an important step in achieving socio-economic and political empowerment for Nigerian and African Women. I therefore salute and congratulate our amiable Professor Viola Onwuliri on her new role and emphatically say, that her Presidency of the Global Power Women Network Africa is indeed a new dawn for women.
