People Who Are First To

"Public service is not just reserved for a few. Just because I’m not an elected official that doesn’t mean I’ll give up. We all need to be engaged, it takes all of us to solve problems"

"If you think campaigning is easy, it’s not. It’s fun. It can be fun. But at some point when you’re spending 18 hours a day, seven days a week out on the road, it’s a grind’ and it can be"

"As we seek to access foreign markets we must also build and strengthen our own capital markets and increase efforts towards financial inclusion."

"The power of NEPAD is the power of ideas and solutions it brings to the table. NEPAD and ECA have been working together closely on the MoveAfrica border system to harmonise systems, processes, and regulations in support of implementation of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area. NEPAD has also been at the forefront to ensure that the single African transport market can take hold. It is time for Africa to have its own development institution."

"The health pandemic caught Africa, like the rest of the world, unprepared. Our insurance systems were not deep enough, and as a collective we’ve needed to come together to respond. Twenty years after the birth of the African Union, which was created to reinforce solidarity, the continent was tested."

"“I think if there have been fewer women than men in computing, it’s because they’ve been discouraged back at the education level from majoring in math, or engineering, or computer science.”"

"And they asked if I would be willing to work on that, but it was much too big a job for me to do by myself. And the other women I had worked with had young children, including Elaine, Barbara Wade, Anne Kirby (ph). I mean, there were a number of them and I said we can work on this"

"It really amazed me that these men were programmers because I thought it was women’s work!"

"“Go after it! Don’t be afraid to major in something in college that will lead you to this.”"

"As many women in our movement do – we find ourselves outside the spotlight, doing the hard work behind the scenes, focusing on making big plans come together to benefit the whole"

"We need to join together and speak out for good wages, great benefits, fair scheduling and equal pay for equal work"

"Every worker deserves to have protections on the job and it is the goal of the labor movement to ensure that happens."

"The ability to speak up for each other on the job and at the ballot box is a crucial component in determining the rights and enacting the policies that affect the lives of millions of women and their families."

"People are tired of toxic environments. They're tired of being treated poorly and not having a say in how their workplace is being shaped or changed."

"Employers have the ability to voluntarily recognize them off the spot, but that doesn't always happen as we know. And then there's a contract negotiation process that goes on"

"It’s not enough to protect what we have, we’re not just going to recover what we have lost. This is about taking risks to define the future…on our terms."

"Contrary to Woolf, who I personally always found to be overly dramatic and elitist, and, thus, exclusive, in her viewpoints and demands to literature and feminism, Nwapa did not think of herself as a feminist. At the same time, she is crucially aware of the misrepresentation of women in literature by fellow male authors who tend to display women as prostitutes or mischievous creatures, all of which Nwapa counteracts in her own writing by displaying women as positive, independent and real as they are."

"The novel captures the ongoing changes in Nigerian society where women strive for (economic) independence and personal happiness and growth rather than a life within the boundaries of an outdated tradition. In stressing the economic independence of women, Nwapa reminded me of Virginia Woolf and her essay “A Room Of One’s Own”."

"When Efuru went home, Ajanupu could not help admiring her character. "She is a woman among women. I like the way she is carrying her burden. She still loves that imbecile husband of hers and she is going in search of him."

"As Adiewere and Efuru were eating, a troop of children with shining tummies in front of them were seen approaching. "These children are just in time. The way they time themselves is admirable."

"Feminism was a politics of empowerment that assumed that a woman was a victim. I saw feminism as a politics that had to first position women as victims so that it can then empower them."

"Women have always been powerful and striven to achieve financial independence. I wanted a politics that fought for expanding and nurturing the power that women already had. It is not that I believed that there was no such thing as gender inequality. I just did not want to see a woman as a victim but as someone who was always enterprising and looking for ways to undermine the systems of power that tried to put her down."

"I don’t even accept that I’m a feminist. I accept that I’m an ordinary woman who is writing about what she knows. I try to project the image of women positively."

"I don’t think that I’m a radical feminist,”"

"If I am considered the doyenne of African female writers, the glory goes to the oral historians and griottes who mesmerized me with stories about the mystical powers of Ogbuide, the mother of the lake, my family members of industrious women and men who served as role models, as well as my penchant for service and the pursuit of excellence."

"They did not see the reason why Adizua should not marry another woman since according to them two men do not live together. To them Efuru was a man, since she could not reproduce."

"I am sure you will like this gin. Nwabuzo had it buried in the ground last year when there was rumour that policemen were sent to search her house. When the policemen left, finding nothing, Nwabuzo was still afraid and left it in the ground. A week later, she fell ill and was rushed to the hospital where she remained for six months. She came back only a week ago. So the gin is a very good one."

"Efuru told him that she would drown herself in the lake if he did not marry her. Adizua told her he loved her very much and that even the dust she trod on meant something to him."

"We are well, Efuru replied. It is only hunger. It is good that it is only hunger. Good health is what we pray for."

"There was nothing in me when I was in school that made me feel I was going to be a writer. It was one of those things that just happened. I didn’t have the ambition to say, “Oh, Flora, you are going to be a writer, so work towards it"

"There is no problem in this world that cannot be solved."

"What can a woman do? You say everyday. In the end, a woman does something, and even then still you look down on women."

"Let us stop this system of putting people in positions just because of the contacts they have. That is a major reason why we remain a poorly governed and undeveloped country."

"I tried to review the teaching of mathematics in schools, to make sure that the teachers understood the new concept which was already in use in Europe and America. I think we made an appreciable progress. But one of the saddest days of my life was the day the federal commissioner announced in 1978 that modern mathematics was abolished in schools."

"On the home front, she was firmly established as a matriarch of immeasurable value; a wife, mother, aunt and confidant. At 89, she lived a fulfilled life worthy of emulation by women and men alike. As she aged gracefully, she maintained her commanding presence and quiet dignity as a positive influence for human progress."

"Her intellectual and practicable contributions to our projects and programmes went along to ensure the sustainability and continued relevance of the foundation."

"Aged 89, she was a woman of rare attributes, a disciplined and astute administrator who was not afraid to work with others. Her success as a vice chancellor showed that she has a strong character who could withstand any challenge. She excelled in the administration of the University of Benin in spite of the mounting opposition by the male staff."

"The death of this renowned Nigerian scholar is a great loss to the academic community and the country."

"The role of the Nigerian University system as an instrument for cohesion, change and development in our nation. Today, as we lament the falling standard in education and the negative ethnicization and contraction of real quality educational opportunities, we might do well to go dust up that lecture from this great Nigerian to follow up on some of her proposals."

"The African Mathematics Programme brought together Africans, Americans, and British educators in English-speaking African countries to consider changes in mathematics education in Africa. ... The African Mathematics Programme organized writing workshops in Africa that produced the Entebbe Modern Mathematics Series. Between 1962 and 1969, the African Mathematics Programme conducted annual eight-week writing workshops in Entebbe and Mombassa, and produced over 80 volumes of textual materials covering primary school, teacher training, secondary, and sixth-form mathematics."

"As at the time she resumed in UNIBEN from Lagos following the tenure lapse of Adamu Baike, its former VC, the warring academics who wanted to occupy that exalted position were believed to have slunk into their scholarly recesses because there was little they could do about the federal government’s choice in the form of protest at the time."

"The Entebbe Mathematics Series have sometimes been dubbed American but this is to ignore the valuable contribution of the African participants, who feel keenly the African origin of the series. Moreover the whole exercise has provided an international forum for teaching and learning, unprecedented in the annals of education. Africans, working with Europeans and Americans, have produced mathematics texts good enough for use anywhere in the world. Mutual benefits have been derived by all concerned and the project has clearly contributed to international understanding."

"The experiments in the schools led many parents to think more about what their children learned at school and it is not too great a claim to say that the annual and end-of-term inservice courses for teachers led ministries of education to rethink their mathematics programme. In the case of Lagos State, the favourable demonstration effect of the Entebbe Mathematics program coinciding with the states' readiness to introduce a new syllabus led to the total acceptance of the project. In Lagos State, we believe we still have considerable work to do with the teachers. Teaching the teachers mathematics is a relatively simple task but changing their attitude and practice is harder. Several years of hard work are still necessary before we can truly claim that modern mathematics has come to stay."

"After creating the “political class,” journalists failed to set parameters for person in that class."

"The excitement I felt on receiving the news from Professor Jubril Aminu (Minister of Education) had more to do with seeing it in terms of opening up the field for women than anything else. I saw it as an opportunity to show that women too could rise up to the occasion."

"To the elderly ones, you are retired but don't be tired. Just keep doing what you were doing."

"Play hard and keep straight, and continue getting quality education, well informed, so that in any situation you have something positive to contribute."

"Ask yourself over and over again, has the Chibok affair become too late to think about?"

"As long as we are celebrating a woman vice chancellor because she is the first or a woman chief judge because she is the first, then we have not arrived. We look forward to the time when we will have many women in such positions and we will be celebrating so many of them."

"To be a good politician you must be wise like a snake, calm like a dove and kind like an angel."