Aishatu Madawaki Quotes

My parents are enlightened and educated, so in my family right from the first to the last child, we are all exposed to this issue of western life and Islamic education. My father had said if it means spending his last penny he would educate my siblings and I on both western and Islamic education, and he really did keet his promise before he died. So I have all the encouragement from my late father to my husband, friends, brothers and sisters.

If your religion has given you power, opportunity, and the go-ahead to seek knowledge where ever you can get it, then what is limiting you? The only problem is attitudinal and that we have to address and change.

If we go by merit we have so many intelligent and determined women who are focused and can deliver any time.

First and formost, I am an advocate of girl-child education because I have seen the benefits, and I have been a role model to many young girls. I will call on the women in the state, the region and country in general to really be focused, to be determined to achieve the best in any condition and environment they found themselves.

Give her skills that would enable her to empower herself, not just acquiring the knowledge. Let the knowledge be there and the knowledge not just the theoretical aspect but let’s have the practical aspect.

In addition, going by the free education policy, the only problem is that, how free is the free, when you find little charges?

For any development to take place, there has to be gender equity.

I was part and parcel of the formation of some of the NGOs and also a member of for instance, the Federation of Muslim Women

For parents generally, I will urge them to treat all their children equally because all human beings are equal before the Creator. There is no inferior or superior sex, we all have our weaknesses and we all have our strengths. And if you look at it critically I am happy that when you go out and begin to talk with people you would begin to hear women are more affectionate, compassionate, more understanding, they are more intelligent and parents are now beginning to appreciate their female children more than even the male children and that is good.

You know it was as a result of my participation with non-governmental organisations (NGO) in the state, that actually brought me out and that was how I even got the recognition of some of the international agencies. That was how government and some international agencies got to know about me and really involved me in their activities.

I saw the area to be an interesting field, most especially as a woman, and as a mother. I thought the course would be useful to me, my children, and the community itself. Psychology is all about the study of human behaviour, the how, what and, when. By the time you meet with people, and you are able to draw insights from observing them, then half of the problem is solved.

Although the situation has improved and is improving, I am not really impressed, because you have more of talking than action as people tend to talk too much but little is done. You hear so many things about girl-child education, but if you go round actually what people are saying, this is not exactly what is happening. Like I said, there is improvement but we need to do more than what we are doing.

What is expected doesn’t stop at just enrollment. We may have very high enrollment figures but in the area of monitoring and supervision, you find so many things falling apart. For instance, if you enroll a hundred girls this year, by the time you get to the second year, if there is no proper monitoring, you hardly get fifty girls.So what are we saying? What we need is not high enrollment figure but high retention figure, high completion figure and after completion, what next?

The whole issue of HIV/AIDS was new and it was myself and one Hajara who started creating awareness about it then. We achieved that by going round schools, prison yards and some ministries, to do advocacy and sensitisation exercises and later, we embarked on some training programmes and thereby got some funding from some organisations to work more.

Women are very peaceful, tolerant, incorruptible and patriotic.