Women Activists From Nigeria

"Parents have their own timeline for your life. You must create and embrace yours and BE HAPPY with your choices."

"Your life journey will take you on many different paths but you will end up where you are supposed to in the end. Trust the process. Pray always and don’t lose your humanity or compromise who you are in a bid to get to the top."

"People share things innocently believing that it is true but that is how fake news is spread, through inattention and lack of verifying. Check that it is from a credible news source before sharing something online."

"Everything is about the mindset, I find. I choose to remain positive, even in the face of challenges. It’s not easy but it’s an attitude I find gets me through tough times."

"I came to Nigeria determined to make the most of an amazing career opportunity in a place that is home in my heart. You have to roll with the punches."

"We are a news network and we report the news as it happens. We must tell the stories we find."

"We want to engage with the audience where they are, on mobile, on social, and also for those who are not connected online, on television. So it’s a multi-faceted, multi-platform approach using digital storytelling tools to tell African stories in a new way."

"Practice your craft daily. Watch those you admire, follow their steps, and emulate them. But you must start. Create your own opportunities."

"There’s something about this place that just grabs you and sucks you in. The energy is off the charts and I think that is what attracts people here."

"Nigerian women rock! The can-do spirit and general tenacity in the face of adversity is something to be admired. From the market woman selling her wares to the women at the height of their careers, I am full of admiration of how Nigerian women manage to make things happen, sometimes with very little."

"As a woman, you can’t limit yourself, the ages of limitations are definitely gone so, do it."

"I would have become a prostitute, but I became restless and challenged destiny. Your life cannot change for the better if you don’t challenge destiny. Even God challenged destiny"

"We all need support and if you can give it go ahead. Do it and be grateful to God that you have been presented an opportunity to be a blessing to another person. God will truly reward you for every gift you give to the poor…the yam sure will put food in their pots…but this is not acceptable, this is not giving! #stoptheabuse #stoptheabuseofwomen."

"Once an artiste, always an artiste. I am not just one of the talented ones; I am also one of the skilled ones, having attended series of training while I have also garnered experience. It is easy to get back to what you have always loved. I guess that’s why and when people know that you have the capacity to do your work and do it well, you don’t have to ask for respect. Respect would find you."

"It is not enough to say I have the passion and the talent. It’s not even enough to say I have been trained. It takes much more than these to be a grounded actor. And people need to stop some of the things they do, especially when at the end of one reality programme, every participant automatically becomes part of Nollywood. Values such as excellence seem not to matter anymore with awards and recognitions being handed out to just anybody. If we would take care of such things and reward excellence instead of mediocrity, then people would come around to say that we have grown. On the average, I really think we have grown"

"Well, I am a very open person. My private life is my private life; it is what it is. Outside of that, I am not a scandalous person. I don’t like scandals. It’s not by luck, it’s about how I carry myself and how I do the things I do. If you respect yourself, others would respect you. I don’t know any other way that it’s done. I am the same way with everybody. I have too much love inside of me and I have enough to share."

"If I say I am satisfied, it means we should not do anything more. If I say I am not satisfied, it will look as if I am greedy. I don’t know where to stand but I think we can do better than we are doing right now. I think we need to discipline ourselves. It’s about commitment. We need to be more committed to serving the people we represent and serving the people who stick with us. I think we need to do more"

"Our silent environmentalists, as I like to call them, deserve to be integrated into a system where their economic and social security is enhanced to ensure no one is left behind and the furthest behind are reached first."

"Sometimes when I think of what people that sit in committees come up with, I wonder what runs in their veins. Blood or water? Because they react like people who don’t feel the pain of others."

"Nigerian informal waste workers’ plight is quite pathetic and the job they do is an essential job because, without them, we will all be living on dumpsites"

"enoughisenough. Justice is not just ice. Stop throwing the cases and the victims into the freezers until they become ice. We can’t keep burying our children because those who are supposed to be protecting us are busy questioning and blaming the victims."

"Climate change does not know the face of a woman, man, rich, or even the poor. We need to take environmental issues seriously. We need to plant trees; we need to make policies that touch human beings; we need to stop burning our bushes. The issue of wildlife is very important because we need to coexist with our nature."

"We women leaders must rise up to the task of reshaping our country by providing our intuitive ideas to support the developmental ideals of Nigeria."

"We must endeavour to raise good children and of course inspire them to do the same to their children. Through this, we shall raise a generation of conscientious leaders who will have the fear of God in them to do all the needful to develop our dear Nation."

"..….let me point out that nothing can be achieved without the following: a clear vision, burning desire, an unquenchable passion and corresponding actions."

"When I started, so many people did not understand and asked questions like how can human beings be trafficked? Many people were taken aback and not until when the real thing started. The moment I started it, the Italian government were very impressed and they started repatriating our girls back to Nigeria. The first batch of girls that were repatriated were 70 and were accompanied by 140 Policemen because these children were very reluctant, they enjoyed the life out there and didn’t want to go back home and it was something else and since then we brought it to the front burner of the government and work started and that is how WOTCLEF came about."

""WOTCLEF is my fervent prayer, dream and aspiration to restore human dignity"."

""In WOTCLEF, we have strategies we use to accomplish our mission, through sensitization, we create awareness, and we assist the trafficked victims and the vulnerable persons, and we rehabilitate and we re-integrate them into the society and even with their parents or guardians, we bring them together all to re-integrate them back into society. Apart from advocacy, we do capacity building for these children, we partner with stakeholders, both national and international agencies and the work is very easy for us. Through this WOTCLEF has earned accolades in the United Nations (UN). We have a seat at the UN and if they are having any discussions or forum on women trafficking or child labour, we are invited to come and have a say in whatever they are doing"."

""So amazed, I asked if this is what these people do to these children so it hurt my feelings and I said to my God given self that one day, when I am in position, I will help these young vulnerable children"."

"It's just that climate change has become integrated into all the other aspects. There’s no way you will address the issues of environment, governance, or peace and conflict transformation without bringing in climate change."

"I might be in Abuja but I like to touch the lives of these women out there because when you touch the life of one woman, you have touched the lives of a whole family."

"You have to understand the terms gender, justice before you can talk about environmental justice."

"..Talking about environmental justice, we are looking at the root causes of these issues; we are looking at system change. If we can change the system, the climate will change naturally."

"When the young people are not placed strategically to address the challenges especially environmental and climate change, then that nation is doomed. Young people are the strength of this nation; it is also, therefore very, imperative that youth can be pivotal to building social collation, economic prosperity, and environmental sustainability."

"You have to plant all the seed, give them all the knowledge you have, and all the love you can give; make sure that they know love from you so that they can extend it to others in their life."

"After the publication of the book, I was sponsored to visit the U.S. as part of the international visitors program. The USIS (United States Information Service) in Nigeria organised for me to travel to several U.S. universities to give lectures and do readings from my work."

"I am a humanist, and as a humanist, anything concerning the human condition, the progress of man, civilisation, the human thinking, knowledge especially, are some of the things that I take very personally."

"There is a new discipline that is called Fundamental Studies and this is an area where you think deeply about the origin of things. You don’t deal with effects; you deal with causes."

"I don’t profess to be any one religion, I think all religions are flawed because people are flawed. But we have the potential and capacity to be bigger than our flaws."

"Poetry, and art in general, allows us to take what is around us and set it on fire. It is the tool we use to enact and document change."

"It is the poets who tell the stories in a rhythm that forces the masses and the aristocracy to listen."

"Poetry has been an instrument of change and revolution since it existed. It is protest and defiance and celebration and a love anthem. It is how we communicate so of course it is also how we enact change."

"....The talent is here. The opportunities aren't. And it is the opportunities that foster growth."

"Yes, the gods knew what they were doing. They always joined together in marriage people of opposing qualities and thus ensured harmony."

"The new thing I want to add to knowledge is: I want to connect culture and education, science and technology. I have seen the link between culture and science, culture and education, culture and technology, and that’s what I think I can establish."

"Because thinkers are those people who are able to pierce into the future and catch glimpses of light and bring it down. Many people do not often see what you are seeing until years and years later."

"The thing is that any work of art that has something in it will always challenge people: Some, in one respect; the others, in another respect. But you will find out that people keep on going back to that work because there is always something challenging in it."

"I’m not a feminist, I’m a humanist. Being in Women studies and being in African Studies and being a woman, you often find this discussion coming to you."

"It is about squandering the commonwealth of the people, ostensibly for the benefit of the people but ultimately for the good of only a select few."

"Ekiti State became the first State in the country to domesticate the National Gender Policy."