Cast your mind back to 31 years ago — 1995 to be exact. Women across the world assembled in China’s glimmering city called Beijing. They gathered to deliberate on global issues which affected femininity. They talked. Chanted. Discussed. Declared. Then dispersed into silence.
The stillness that followed the mind-blowing declarations in Beijing was purely because certain corporate bodies and governments that signed those assertions did so with their hands and not with their hearts — they simply followed the multitudes without individual convictions.
However, the silence could not eclipse the thundering statement by the then First Lady of the United States, Hillary Clinton that: “It is no longer acceptable to discuss women’s rights as different from human rights.” She did not end there.
Just before she concluded her less-than-three-minutes-speech, she left the delegates with a talking point: “If there is one message that echoes forth from this Conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights, once and for all.” That statement must have inspired the Abuja Summit of 21 August. The Summit stood out as an idea whose time had actually come.
Although I was not invited, let me briefly play back what happened, the importance it carried, and the weight of decisions arrived at. No doubt, the Summit — which lasted over six hours — consumed months of meticulous planning. It was a pool of people that matter in decision-making in Nigeria.
Labelled: “Inclusion and National Security Summit,” it had as its theme: “Advancing Women’s Leadership for Inclusive Governance and Security.” From the array of persuasive voices, it did not look like an event whose resolutions would gather dust in government files. It had ministers, lawmakers, top security agents, judiciary officers, traditional and religious leaders, development partners, civil society groups, women