Women Activists From Nigeria

"I am not scared of lifting other women up. As long as I wear the crown, no one can take my throne."

""Don’t wait till you have a mental breakdown before you seek help. … If you’re wondering whether or not you should seek help for something, that’s exactly the right time to seek help.”"

""The best way for us to protect our mental space is to understand it, and know that mental health is not abstract. … When things are going on around you, within you, there are thoughts that fly through your mind and those thoughts trigger certain kind of emotions.”"

""When my condition is not seen as something that is wrong with me but as a set of qualities that my environment is yet to adapt to, people with mental-health conditions are no longer seen as a problem that needs to be fixed.”"

""What I hear the most is that people need understanding. … They want to know their stories were valid, their opinions mattered, and that is what gave me purpose.”"

""If I do not speak up, one more person will have to live in shame and fear of stigma.”"

"Women with mental health conditions like myself have something to say and we are being heard. It’s empowering!."

"Intentionally make time for activities that boost your mood."

"We cannot self-care our way out of a mentally unhealthy environment."

"I want to resist the “African homosexual” as an empirical figure waiting to be discovered or, through NGO and international interventions, to be created and saved"

"Caught between Western imperialism, African patriarchy and religious fascism, the continent’s gay community needs a strong, articulate set of voices. This is a work of African resistance that boldly states: We are here, and we are many!"

"People need to understand we are invested in the future and how that future will be."

"You can’t change anything if you don’t have imagination... Don’t let the oppressor dictate the narrative. I think we have the tendency to react to the oppressors’ narrative and really we should be dictating our own narrative. That is something I learned: sometimes we focus on them rather than what we ought to change in ourselves. They are there to distract us from what we need to do."

"The first thing I would say is to understand there is a history of activism, of the arts, and literature and to keep that in mind and not discard the past and what people did. It is important to learn about the past and build on it. That is quite important to understand. Ageism is still very prominent in how people speak, write, and create their ideas, particularly on social media. I would say the first thing is to look at the past and build on it and respect it, just as I respect what is happening now and what young people are doing."

"I didn’t just want to document: I wanted to fully understand what I was documenting. I wanted to be very aware of how you take photographs in certain situations; not to expose people, and to try to present the narrative you want without making it into a spectacle of a human being in suffering. That is why I see myself as a visual scholar. I need to understand the aspects of what I am working with."

"Disability is not the making of the person living with a disability... Disability is not taboo."

"No child should be out of school or limited due to a disability."

"We live in a world where women are abused daily and are unable to speak up. One out of four women experience some form of sexual violence in their lifetime. This crime can take place at anytime and can happen to anyone regardless of tribe, religion or social class. Sadly, the society’s response to this heinous crime has led victims to believe that silence is the best option. However, Speaking up is our greatest weapon in this fight against sexual violence."

"I don’t think that the word leader has to do with a particular talent or a particular field.A leader is a leader, and this cuts across in different ways."

"I would want to see women go actively into politics, and by politics, I do not mean by appointment alone. I will like to see women run for office so that they can be in a better position to effect more change as against just being appointed into political offices, which is good in itself."

"Children who learnt bullying from home and their peers will eventually be shielded by their parents and where they cannot justify the actions of their wards, they will ferry them to safety."

"Why are we acting surprised? Why are we locking away Africa when this virus is already on three continents? Nobody is locking away Belgium and Israel. Why are we locking away Africa? It is wrong and it is time our African leaders stand up and find their voice."

"We knew this was a crossroads it was going to bring us to. It was going to bring us to a variant. It was going to bring us to more dangerous variants."

"Had the first Covid-19 virus, the one first identified in China last year, originated in Africa it is clear the world would have locked us away and thrown away the key, there would have been no urgency to develop vaccines because we would have been expendable. Africa would have become known as the continent of Covid-19. What is going on is inevitable and is a result of the world’s failure to vaccinate in an equitable, urgent, and speedy manner."

"Please do not push your luck in challenging the status quo or seeking to insist on your high ground, it is a proven means of soliciting for your middle name."

"What we fail to realize as humans is that our world may be large, but we’re all just in a small cup,” she said. “What affects one person affects every single one of us."

"What got me really enraged was the fact our government hadn’t said a word because they didn’t believe the girls were taken,” she said. “They didn’t say anything until about 19 days after."

"They’re not girls who have social status. Their parents are not economically well off, she said. “But I can tell you, if any one of those girls belonged to a government official, they’d be found."

"As a religious person, you are subject to the commandment of God and as a Nigerian, you are subject to the laws of the land whether you like it."

"I laugh again not in humour at the seeming punishment of the staffs who participated in the padding of our 2016 budget."

"I’m disgusted when I hear some of our current public officials excuse their non-performance on Sabotage."

"All these terrorist groups are walking around with the same agenda. They may believe differently, but it’s the same agenda. They’re anti-all of us."

"You and l are most likely to die before these our leaders. With all the money that they’ve stolen, these leaders have access to the best medical care, but what can you and l brag of?"

"The Nigerian Army called the shooting fake and I had made the whole thing up with a green screen. Yes, I have plans of going to Hollywood after this speech."

"The Nigerian Minister for Information, our very own spin doctor, his first name is ‘Lie’."

"Our leaders are afraid; it is as simple as that. They are afraid of a thinking, innovative, and collaborative working Nigeria. They are afraid of every young Nigerian who, against all odds, has made it for themselves."

"The same future that they say is in the hands of the leaders of tomorrow, but what we have tomorrow are recycled leaders of today who have failed to provide an enabling environment for young leaders to thrive and contribute. But they chose, instead to kill us all off one by one."

"I know that I want to make sure that I do everything I can to get justice for those people, and it’s beyond justice now. I’m looking at a full-on reform if it’s the last thing I do."

"Makoko is a case study, isn't something you can fully understand. It took me a while to understand a lot of things about what goes on in that place."

"You can imagine the kind of brilliance we have in people, but you never discover or see them if you don't give them opportunities to shine."

"Most girls are trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty. Many of them are not thinking education, a plan for the future... They need to be shown another life"

"Technology is a space that's dominated by men. Why should we leave that to guys? I believe girls need opportunities."

"I believe you can still find diamonds in these places"

"One thing I want my girls to hold onto is, regardless of where they are coming from, they can make it..."

"I hope every ladies see themselves as Great."

"Spread your wings. Soar like an eagle. May the wind be behind you. May the sun be in front of you on your face and may you fly."

"I had a focus. What is your focus? ... You will be tested. What should you do? We don’t know. You are going into a new world order that you may be defining."

"The possibility of establishing a positive and constructive dialogue is that You do not fight ideology and extremists with weapons. We cannot defeat them with drones, I think we can do more than that. We have to get other strategies and tactics."

"The future of human rights is optimistic. If I look back to fifty years ago, before the declaration of human rights, and look forward to what is happening now, it is true that we made progress. Humanity is dynamic and continuously changing, for example, the entertainment and advertising industry is totally changing our mindsets. I think that human rights laws are making a lot of work but the basic challenge should be NGOs, community-based organisations, inter-governmental agencies. We should not think about human rights in terms of what can we gain from them, but in terms of what we can give to them."

"At one point in life, we are migrants or refugees, if not us, our great grand-parents. What is important is that everyone is treated with the dignity of a human person."