I’m not first female Lawyer in northern Nigeria – Professor Hauwa Ibrahim

Professor Hauwa Ibrahim, President of The Peace Institute, an International Human Rights and Sharia Law Lawyer. Ibrahim in this chat with PERISCOPE NIGERIA, shares insights about her journey to the global stage, how she clinched the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize, in 2005, serves as Examiner Reader of Professors going to Harvard, and others.

Can you tell us about your type of background?

I’m from Hinna in Yalmatu Deba Local Government Area, I usually want to acknowledge my upbringing, I was what they called (talah girl) I was hawking on the street in my village and my village is small, so you walk from house to house to sell things on the head. It can be groundnuts, onions, vegetables of any sort, sweet potatoes, it can be anything saleable. My village has a variety of fruits, a lot of fruits, and every season of the fruits I buy and sell to make a little money, that was my background growing up.

What was your early education like?

I went to primary school in Hinna, I went to Women Teachers College in Azare Bauchi State. I got a Teacher certificate, and I then moved on to stay with my sister who got married in the city of Bauchi because in my village then we had no facilities of any kind, in the city of Bauchi they had electricity I noticed there a Television. I saw a woman on a TV program her name was Mrs Hannatu Ibrahim, not related to me, she was the first female Commissioner for Youths, Sports and Culture in Bauchi State, they had a program called (kallabi a cikin rawani) females tie gele on their heads amid the men. The programme was in Hausa and I saw her, and she suggested that she wanted to help girls to go to school that was one of her mission, fast forward, and she was the key that opened the door for me to believe in myself. So I went to her office to see her, I went there more than 20 to 30 times on different dates begging to see her because I saw her on the screen, I didn’t look presentable and I wasn’t allowed to see her but I kept coming, the last time the security said to me I will allow you to go in but you will never come back to the ministry I said yes, I accept sir.

Were you able to see her?

I finally met with Mrs Ibrahim, when I entered her office I was confused when I saw the big desk in front of her and her personality was free in this place so I bent down I didn’t know whether to lie down on the floor I was just confused. it was my first experience in the office, and she asked me to sit on the chair and I was sitting like half of myself was apart from the chair.

What was her reaction when she received you?

The first word she said was what can I do for you? And I said I saw you on the television you said you want to help girls go to school and she was like you have guts, i didn’t learn English in school at all in primary school, or elementary, and there was no consistent English teacher in school. We have National Youth Service Corps teachers that will come and take some classes and then when they go we are back to square one, so Hausa was our lingual franca, moving forward to look at my result I did not pass English and she was like how can you think you can go through school without English? She asked what school do I want to go to? And I said the University of Jos, she said how can you go to the University after all you finished from Teachers College? Because then, we have Advanced Teachers College, then Teachers College was the least among the colleges that you can think of going to the university. I had suffered to see her, so I just stood and burst into tears and she was saying whatever I did my tears could not help me because I didn’t pass English. Moving forward, she said I can give you a note,
For the first time, I saw a complimentary card, she wrote something on it and put it in an envelope and I don’t know what she wrote, but she wrote George Korba, on the envelope, he was the Registrar of the University of Jos and I think he is from Benue State, and she asked me to go and give him because he could help me do something if he could help me. After all, that is the best she could do I left there happy with an envelope in my hands. She gave me a 20 naira note in my hand and that was when it was produced in 1983, a new note I’d never seen that type of money, I was excited and it was enough to pay my transportation to Jos and back.

Were you able to see Mr George, the Registrar?

I had the same attitude seeing the Registrar, it was not easy to see him, and when I saw him it took me a day and a half and I didn’t know who he was but people would come and pass and enter. I was crying because I was just sitting there and didn’t know what to do, I’ve never been to Jos, I’m coming from Bauchi, somebody asked me and I said I just came with this envelope to give this man finally I got to see the Registrar and he had the same attitude when he opened the envelope he looked at me and looked at her notes and her card and then he asked me where is your result and then I showed him the result, and said something like you have no English, here in the University we cannot admit you. I had to burst into crying again, he was like all my tears will not give me admission, is not possible he had admitted people with good results and I didn’t have good results, so he dismissed me and said I should go and meet the Secretary there was a form for remedial. Fast forward, I didn’t get admitted on the first and same with supplementary admission, but I got into the sub-supplementary admission it was conditional for me to pass English, so then I came back and immediately I left for Azare I decided that I wanted to write English again to pass it because all my other subjects were good while I’ve had a situation in my primary school I was a little bit hard working so I skipped two classes in the primary school because if you get to number one you can go to the next class, I was in primary one then I got to primary three and then I skipped another class to primary five, and at primary six we started the 6-3-3-4 meaning that I didn’t do primary seven so by the time I graduated to become a lawyer I was 19 or 20.

How did you choose law?

I did remedial which was one year, meanwhile, I passed my English so the conditional admission was confirmed and I was able to finish the remedial. I’ve never seen a Lawyer and I don’t know what lawyers do but while I was in the remedial class everybody was saying I want to be a Lawyer, some Doctor this and that so there are two remedial; one is sciences and the other is social sciences then actually I wanted to be a Nurse that was my passion in life and is because my aunt is a Nurse, anyways they chased me out of remedial sciences, and then I went to remedial social sciences. So there everybody wanted to be a lawyer and then I said why not me too? Because then after remedial I filled out a form I had three choices my first choice was Law, my second was Political Science and the other was Management, while in school my second name was Library when they opened doors in the morning, I would be the first person to jump in when they want to close it they will have to chase me out of the library in the evening so i spent my one year as a remedial student always in the library every other thing was secondary. So I worked hard, four years after I was done with university I went to law school, graduated, and moved on.

What was your family background like?

My father was in the Nigeria Customs Service. We didn’t understand what he was doing, until much later I understood he was a driver in the Customs. My father had my mother as his first wife and then later again he got married, we don’t know what happened, in the family I came out from where we never heard my mother return any word to my father (altercation), she was just yes sir type, he worked a lot in Yoruba and Igbo lands so my mother was very fluent in Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa. She had background originally from Borno State, around Gomborun Ngala but then they moved to Yobe and finally settled somewhere in Lubo she married my dad, had eight children and I was one of the five surviving children the second of the five; I have an older sister she went to school and my mum didn’t go to school but she was a sewing mistress she learned how to sew and because she stayed in all those places she learned their languages fluently.

From your Wikipedia profile is believed that you are the first female lawyer in the North, how true?

That is an untrue statement, and I have tried to condemn that statement globally, my sense of this idea of Wikipedia and some other online platforms I never had and I never cared about nor even wanted to check but I heard that story because I have been introduced that way. I have been to 72 countries I’ve been introduced on different platforms so I had to debunk this with one statement, before I was born there were female lawyers in the North; if you remember Aloma Muktar was the Chief Justice of Nigeria, she is from Kano. There is also one Hajiya Fatima Kwaku, in her 70’s she is still around. So, I’m not the first female lawyer in the North. I think when the internet began we were one of the first persons in the 90s or 2000 when I started the Sharia cases that Wikipedia attributed. I just want it corrected that I am not the first female lawyer even before I was born there were female lawyers in the region.

What inspired your book Practicing Shariah Law: Seven Strategies for Achieving Justice in Shariah Courts?

Practicing Shariah Law: Seven Strategies for Achieving Justice in Shariah Courts was inspired because on the 27th of October 1999, Zamfara was the first state to declare Shariah and it was a very big event. I am an ardent reader and a current affairs person so I followed the introduction of Shariah in the state sometime in the year 2000 and to the best of my knowledge one of the first cases came up her name was Bariya and she was thirteen years old. She is from Tsafeh under the Magazu Local Government Area of Zamfara State, she’s a Person With Disability, she had a hunchback, and she hawks. Bariya was selling rice and beans with groundnuts oil at a very early age, and she was allegedly raped by three men her father’s friends, there was a rumor that the father took some money from them a loan that he couldn’t pay back so he decided to give the daughter as payback for the money. Bariya was hawking in a Zaure popularly known as panel and they asked her to give them some rice and beans and requested her to go buy them coke, she bought it for them and they asked her to drink one which she did and they knocked her off, and by the time she woke up the men were not there and in between her legs was hurting her and she didn’t even know, she was pregnant until her stomach started becoming big. Bariya’s mother was concerned, fast forward shariah was introduced and she was convicted of Zina but because she was never married, she was later flogged 100 times. There was an organisation located in Lagos, and one of the directors is in Kano, Aisha Imam, I was contacted by Baobab. I also registered them, as a lawyer one of the things I do is register Non-Governmental Organisations that are women-oriented so they approached me and that was how I was involved in the case of Bariya to defend her in early 2000.

Shortly after that, there was a case in Sokoto State, Safiya Husseini. Safiya was convicted because she had a baby out of wedlock and the baby’s name was Adama, she was impregnated by Yahaya that was my second case, and at the end of Safiya’s case, Amina Lawal’s case came up because the North is not acceptable to have a child out of wedlock even tomorrow especially in the villages, after the case of Safiya we went through the back door to run away. We don’t want to show any emotion whether we are happy or sad because we won the case. So someone met me at the back door and said something like Hauwa do you know there was a case in the Funtua area in the village of Kurani? I was told this morning that she would be stoned to death so if I can help her, so I was a bit displeased. I was passing through Funtua from Sokoto, so I stopped and then took Amina’s case forward.
Between the case of Bariya and the last case I handled in the Niger State of Fatima and Ahmadu, I’ve had over 150 cases of Shariah; mostly 40 percent are women sentenced by stoning, and the cases of children sentenced by amputations in the case of stealing, in the cases of people who have been drunk by Alcohol they will be flogged 100 times in between I had a lot of cases 152 was my last count.

You asked me why I wrote my book. It’s
Because of three factors; one of them is the normal Nigerian factor which I think every country has and I think we have our own. My books are a culmination of all these difficulties, especially the law, if you know we lost in the first appeal, we lost in the second appeal and we won at the third appeal when we lost I looked at the judgments of the judges that are for stoning her and for me, that was more interesting than the one that was for not stoning her, was not interesting because as for me I am trying to find the reason why any human being in the 21st century will think this way. So I was trying to analyze and interrogate the reason for the judgments to stone her so in interrogating I granted an interview after the end of one of my cases that is Amina’s case to BBC and one of the questions by Umar Faruk, who interviewed me asked was ‘Is stoning to death in the Qur’an’? My reply was I’ve read the Qur’an back and forth I recite the Qur’an very easily even now and I said to him to the best of my knowledge I didn’t see stoning to death in the Qur’an. It was played repeatedly that many concluded I was Anti-Islam, some others said I was Anti-Shariah and paid by the West to destroy Islam and to destroy Shariah in Nigeria and my blood is also Halal.

It was a big issue in 2002 and we had the Ambassador of the United States in Nigeria, i think he read the papers and went through a man called Shitu, who was the Head of the Consulate department for staff in the American embassy and I was told they needed me at the embassy I didn’t know what the reason was, Shitu said that the embassy is interested in sponsoring me to a conference scholarship in the United States of America.

So the publicity from your response on Islam’s position on stoning of women was a good mileage for you?

I wasn’t sure at that moment I didn’t consider it, in fact when they gave me the form to go and fill I took the form and I misplaced it about two weeks after Shitu called me and asked where is the form and I said I don’t know he said he needs me to come to the embassy as of that time they knew plans were on to kill me but for me if i die i die, if i live i live i never had security around me and there was a lot of push for me to have security i was like I’m not going to have security i didn’t hurt anybody, i did do anything to anybody so if the Almighty wants me dead is okay. I finally was able to get out of the country after Shitu insisted I see him in his office and fill out the form I was told that in three months I was going to do some short programs and I wasn’t interested.

What other experiences did you have handling those Shariah cases?

When we started the cases of Safiya, Bariya, and Amina Fatima, for the first time it was men who were speaking on our behalf, there were two programs one in the name of Allah by CNN and the other one in the name of God by BBC it’s entailed documentary they did on the cases and you can see it passing notes and there’s amnesty international magazine with a lot of pictures. I got to see some of them much later because that wasn’t my focus, I don’t give interviews and I won’t show off, you will see me with files and files. There was a day I came to court and there was a cartoon of me that the book fell from my head all over, so I focused on my work as a lawyer, which was not pleasing to some of my colleagues who wanted to be relevant to the press that I am not joining them in the press conferences and after the case one day people asked me if I could tell them anything I will tell them after the case.

Are there times it did not favor you in your work as a lawyer?

There are many times but the point for me was not favoring, the point for me was we have a woman sentenced to death by stoning and all I wanted was for her should be acquainted and discharged that was it for me. Many talk about NGOs in terms of fundraising and I will talk about the cases in terms of the law, facts, procedures, and technicalities of the law. so it was my focus some places where I worked professionally there were a lot of headlines about me, one of them was Guardian and it was like Shariah lawyer, so I had to call them because it was necessary to say I was not Anti-shariah I am just doing my job.

Are you in any way anti-Islam or anti-Shariah?

I was born and raised a Muslim. I never make religion an issue in my cases, and if anyone was after religion it is their problem to go and deal with it. My religion is between me and my God whatever religion I practiced is not relevant, I made it very clear as a lawyer. So, this issue of religion was mentioned many many times in Nigeria and I refused to join the issue with that even up til tomorrow, some still bring it up, oh! She is this or that. I just came back from my village and I refused to make religion my issue because I think is a distraction in my profession for most of my profession, i never talked about religion when you read things like she is a Muslim lawyer whoever put it there I don’t care and is not relevant. I don’t speak about my religion, I think people use it for different purposes i am a big campaigner against using religion to serve a purpose.

Some have alleged you are Christian, how true?

I will not take oath with any of the books Bible or Quran, that is my own perspective and I’m not an atheist but my belief is between me and the Almighty.

What about your family, how were you able to convince your spouse?

My spouse is not a Nigerian and he is into construction he felt at that moment that I was extremely reckless, we had one son and he thought I was extremely very selfish and reckless because I am not been careful about everything that is just about me. The papers, radio, and TV are saying that I was doing the wrong thing and I knew I was doing the right thing i remember my person of chance and that nobody paid me, I was not paid a dime to do any of these cases it came out inside of me. Baobab didn’t pay me, nobody paid me i just believe that if the first woman is killed or stoned to death I may be the next person.

You recently visited the Gombe State Ministry of Justice, what were your observations?

I took a tour of their library and all the offices and I was touched because Gombe has a population of three to four million people and they don’t have a Ministry of Justice that can help them deliver justice I am thinking in the cloud but even if I am just floating in the cloud from what I saw if the lawyers are ready to study but they cannot deliver justice in Gombe State, is not possible so that is what I saw and I couldn’t sleep so the first thing I did at this point was to listen to everything they have to say and I told them I am not promising anything but I will do something.

When I came back, I made a list of the way I drove myself back from Gombe to Abuja, i have been to about ten chambers in Abuja and I don’t have the money but I told myself that I will give out six million. I am going to monetize the money because I didn’t give money when I came i went to the National Institute of Advance Legal Studies and I was able to get books worth two million and a little bit more than two million so they are bringing it to Gombe this weekend and I hope next week they are going to present it officially.

They don’t have printers, A4 sheets to write on, and pens and pencils to write on but the most important thing to me was for them to get letters of Nigerian Laws of the federation so that they can make references as lawyers in the courtroom.

So how do you relax?
I like jokes and like people that joke a lot and the father of my children jokes a lot. If he comes in, I don’t rush things, I spend time catching up, but the moment I go downstairs case here in my house in Abuja, there are about ten people in my house right now and we do normal greetings so my relaxation is with family and here in Abuja I came back on the 13th of January I felt touched by what I saw in the Ministry of Justice in Gombe it was my ministry, I left started my practice and then moved out and move on.

Just getting my state some books and that for me is much better than anything I have thought I’ve done so far this time around that is what gives me happiness when you said how do I spend my time so that is how I relax if I’m able to do some good and make somebody smile. If can make somebody smile because of my actions that makes me happy and that’s how I relax.

What is your fashion sense?

Shortly after I came back a friend of mine, came with a wrapper and she was wearing something similar she said you would love this and she came with a tailor so that they could take my size to make it for me. I was like it’s beautiful, so how much and said it’s N200,000. I thanked her so much for it because it was so beautiful and I wanted to wear it, and I was then wearing a yellow dress, the one you will find if you Google my name I bought it for N700 here in Abuja and that was like five years ago in Wuse market. I didn’t buy a wrapper for more than N2000 today and told her I could not wear it, truly speaking is not like I don’t like it, but is impossible for me to wear it.

What do you invest money in?

My mother said if you give her a sack and she sews and wears it, it fits her. At fifty plus, anything I wear fits me am six feet one my height is 70 to 75 kilos am still in good shape and I do a lot of exercise. I hardly have fashion I do simple dresses and I don’t do pieces of jewelry at all. I don’t invest in fashion, instead I
invest in human beings that is the best I do and that is what makes me, me when I invest in somebody so I feel I am investing in myself.

Wikipedia says you are 56 is that correct?

Is fifty-plus within that range I don’t have the birth certificate so my range will be between 54, and 56, correct !

How did you get the European award from the parliament?

I was at Yale University and I got an email saying I got a Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought and I was like I don’t even know what that means. Sakharov is a noble prize for the European parliament.

How did it make you feel as a Nigerian with such an award?

At first, I didn’t know what it meant, and then when I knew what it meant two persons received the award the first person is Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan. it makes me feel honored and humbled at the same time.

With over 152 cases handled pro bono that is enough to earn you Senior Advocate of Nigeria, why haven’t you applied? Is not something I want to talk about.

I’ve never done (applied) and I am not interested if they offer me the opportunity course, I will be delighted but it is not something I will go out of my way to look out for. I have already become Senior Advocate of the Masses.

Will I be right to say this is another Gani Fawehinmi female, with SAM before the SAN? (Laughs). I met Gani and I so much respect him we knew each other pretty well before he passed away and he was one of the people I looked up to.

Did late Gani Fawehinmi’s principle influence you in any way, did you try to replicate him knowing the culture of the North? I can remember his humility. Mr Gani will never greet you standing. he will always bend a little no matter who you are, despite his age, achievements, and advocacy. When will meet at the Bar Association he will always say Hello Ms. Hauwa, he will never call me Hauwa even though I am much his junior so that humility I remember even as I am talking to you and I feel that is a very important thing for us to see as Nigerians and human beings that a bit of humility makes us a better humans.

What is your favorite food?

I’m a two-person. Tuwo and miyan kuka is what keeps me going. When I was in law school it was Ewedu and Amala, I did my law school in Lagos in the early nineties.

Did you try to reach out to your mentor, the female commissioner, Mrs Ibrahim?

I did every step of the way to try and reach out to her Mrs. Hannatu Ibrahim is eligible in everything I do, all my writings. I have written four books, and two of my books are on Amazon they are best sellers and her name is always consistent she passed away a few years ago I was happy before she passed away she came to the United States and she came to my house and she blessed the house where I was which is one of my greatest blessings and then I was able to take her to my office at Harvard and I wanted her to be proud and when she passed away I I contributed so that her name will be written on the wall of Harvard as what she did to me. There’s one popular actor called Ali Nuhu, his father is her younger brother, Late Nuhu Poloma.

Your drive in all the cases you handled?

If they will stop women from working in government then I am passionate about what I do as a lawyer, if I am not able to defend those cases I may be the next person on the line that may be something that was driving me, not because I am into any woman movement it is something I know at that moment I will do it inside out when I was tagged the anti-shariah.

The fact that your spouse is not from Nigeria, did it make your move to the US easy?

No, he didn’t want me to go he was the total opposite. He was against the cases, i left the country without his permission and this is what I could have done if he had been a Nigerian that could not have been possible. I was like yes, I could go but I couldn’t go with my son, when I went the first time he was about three years old.

When did you get married? I got married in 1993, and we have two boys with a year difference, you can understand his position because even my mother was against everything I did because they would come to the village and tell her that your daughter must be a prostitute to do prostitution cases, so she was under fire, I had to tell her mum, my tool of trade is my wig and my gown, when she told me to stop those cases she came from village to Abuja that people are going to the house and making her feel very uncomfortable calling me a prostitute. My mother came from the village to Abuja to tell me her roof was blown by the wind so I told her we were going to call the carpenter and that is another reason she came so I told her we were going to fix it so I told her the tool of that carpenter to fix her roof is his hammer, he will hit the nail and fix her roof and i tried to explain to her in a term that she will understand that my wig and my gown is my tool of trade so I am doing the same thing, she told me you know you are a lawyer so everything I say you will lawyer me out so I made her understand that what I was doing was not hurting anyone.

Are you satisfied with today’s Lawyers, are they as passionate as you sound?

I am not sure because I’ve been out of the country for the past 15 years i left in 2008 and I’m here (Abuja) and I will be leaving next week i just came to Nigeria because I just want to take a deep breath. I drove from Abuja to my village (Hinna), which is like 17 hours it was a terrible road.
Nobody can tell you Nigeria if you don’t feel it, you need to feel it, to do what I did to know the road.

What do you think about Nigerian roads, some say it’s a death trap?

With the road, I felt some of them are death traps and don’t wait for the government to do that for you. When I went to my village I spent two weeks in my house I didn’t go anywhere I have a title and they call it Sarauniya, like a Queen of my district Yalmatu many people came, I told the person taking the names of people coming and going by the time he it 600 in the first week he said he was tired, I said who ask you to write names (laughs).
Our village is very small but after I stayed for the first week and did the normal greetings the second week I went out because the Dadin Kowa dam has a bridge there the bridge is called Kanti two cars cannot comfortably pass on that bridge so I said now we have done the normal greetings let us go into business I can do that because I took that road to my village the one from Bauchi to Alkaleri was one of the worst roads and people can hurt themselves on that road but the one in my village was my primary responsibility for me charity begins at home. so I showed them that we can do things together and I am not a politician one thing people know in my area about me first is that I don’t give money i am not a politician so if they come to greet me they know I don’t give money, I don’t even have the money to give. If there are children that want to go to school in my area I don’t give the parents money to pay the school. I just take the name of the children, their last results, grades, and then the account number of the school and the telephone number of the bursary though I have levels of checking before I put money into the school account, the pay that gives me the details will not be the same person to pay the money. Over the years, I have done it since in the university when I went for remedial I said to myself I wouldn’t be the last person to come to the school so when I was given food tickets I skipped for instance I take lunch if I don’t don’t take breakfast if I take lunch I don’t take dinner so I can sale my meal tickets to make money to buy forms for somebody from my area to come so somehow I’ve been doing this but this is only for my village but globally I do a lot of things by helping that gives me more satisfaction is not what I invest in myself but what I invest in others.

Are you satisfied with the existing gulf between the rich and the poor?

I can never be satisfied because I can’t go to my village and sleep with my two eyes closed if people don’t eat I can’t pack my car in my village and be comfortable if people are not eating, and they know it. So when I came to the village because is under the Bima Hills, I go out with them to go and make firewood even today, so I was telling you about that bridge because you know as a hawker you put wrapper and make round in other to carry the tray on your head is called Ganmo in Hausa. so I did my ganmo this time around when I was in my village just one week ago. We have irrigation that is passing through my village, the dam irrigation there are bringing big stones out of the irrigation when they dig there are stones we discussed with them how we can try to fix it, all their excuses was it is Federal Government road i said no we don’t want the place to collapse because if it collapsed erosion will set in we just put the stone under then we go and tell the government, so we had snapped pictures before and i took my ganmo took one stone and put it on my head and everybody was shouting Professor is taking stones and every body wants to take it away from me i told everybody to carry their own don’t take my own so that was how we worked for about an hour we pick the stone under hot sun and we went and deposited it by the time we could realise we had hundred plus who assisted so we have enough stone there and i told them that is just the beginning and then after i left my village i came and stopped over in Gombe (capital), i didn’t want to see the governor because i don’t know him and I don’t think he will help me.

Did you attempt to reach him over your community’s plight?

For me, he wasn’t important to me in this issue of my village thing. The most important to me is not even the Commissioner of Works nor the Permanent Secretary, when I went to the Ministry of Works on the 11th of January I asked for the Director of Highways so I went directly to where I knew I would talk professionally and I went with two my children, young men that are very progressive in my village and he (Director of Highways) was so kind, he went stage by stage giving us the ideas, every step we will do, snap the picture i make you do this and that and make you see the governor but you see if you get the information from them then you are stronger to be able to help the youths help themselves so that was my tactics and I was happy with my time in Nigeria even though is ending but is such a blessing that I spent 4-5 weeks this time around.

What do you teach at Harvard University?

My first gig in the United States was the American University through scholarship where I did my LLM and then I was invited to Yale to do a postgraduate degree while I was at Yale I got a Sakharov Prize which became a big issue in the Newspapers and the headlines in the United States because it’s recognised globally and then it was through there that Harvard heard of me and they invited me to come for one year in 2008 I was there as a Radcliffe fellow and I never left up til now. I went from Radcliffe fellowship to Harvard Law School where I had a gig to teach and also a fellow from Harvard Law School i moved to where I was teaching Women’s Justice and Religion which was my stay at Harvard.
After five years I moved to the Middle East Jordan specifically, where I spent time with his royal highness focusing on issues of extremism. I was working with women dealing with ISIS and related organisation I left and came back I never left Harvard fully but right now at Harvard I am an Examiner Reader of Professors going Harvard, I kept the link at Harvard, if a professor is coming, I’m like Professor of Professors whatever you call it. If a professor is going to Radcliffe they send me their application I read, vet it, and then approve or not until the final deciding authority. So I kept a link with Harvard but I have an institution called The Peace Institute which allows me to do what we call STEAMS -Science, Technology, Engineering Arts, and Mathematics, so my focus has shifted a little bit into the next generation. So I have three ideas for The Peace Institute which is now what is keeping me a little bit busy first is getting children from ages 10 to 14 to focus on Science Technology Engineering Arts and Mathematics.
The second part of it is Mothers Without Borders trying to use the phenomenology of the soft power of mothers to slow down viral extremism and the
The last one is human library in the North we don’t have a culture of reading; so I was trying to see how we can reactivate old people into our lives with our oral history.

Women like you in the past have advocated for affirmative action, critics have observed that few women who got the opportunity to aspire or be appointed have not justified such positions how true?

I don’t have an answer to that but let me suggest three things,
The first one is in every society a product of a society is what we produce, so if we produce women who are not reliable we should look in the mirror and reflect and ask ourselves who we are. What we are producing and the second aspect I want to suggest is when you think about politics is not best and the brightest it is opportunists, in that stage where you can switch your mouth to tell them something as an opportunist,
Lastly, there is a bit of hypocrisy when it comes to women or women issues and we are taking responsibility when you talk about this opportunity for women and their performance you reflect on two other issues with women how did they get into that position?
How they get into that position,
the second is godfatherism and motherism we have in the system whose son or daughter are you? There are some sort of issues in our lives and we are accepting it just because your father was a senator you have to be a senator or you have to be a member of them, so all these come into play.
So one of the things I do right now is still working with the global information and democracy in the world and you can check us online they call the Commission for Information and Democracy. I’m into a lot of techs now, I heard Mr Smart Irabor, say something about how Nigeria desperately needs help with issues of insecurity he must have said that a long time ago, when somebody sends me something I hardly look at forwarding but somehow I open it and looked at it and I cringed, I was breathless so hard why I did I do that, it was because I think the future of information and technology I hope you guys will interrogate this is very dicey, we have to look at the issue of manipulation, profit, and control and that is the three word I want to leave with you. This is happening in layers that are beyond our understanding. I was shocked since I came to Nigeria that there was no agitation for global issues such as what I’ve mentioned specific issues that are happening are Israel and Gaza and I was saying there is no agitation why I come here and people come to visit me women or men they will spend half of their time on telephones and I don’t have mine because I keep my phone, I am saying that these gadgets we have will make us or break us, we are not into global issues because our attentions are been manipulated and it been taken away from us, now the attention is on the economy, they just need our attention to keep swapping down our android smartphones, the more you swipe, somebody is making profit they earned billions of Dollars what did the sale? They sell our attention, so we have to understand manipulation economy, profit economy, and control economy we can see it from Gaza and if they don’t control you they destroy you and if we can come to terms with some of these things everything we are doing is great but I can see the danger coming I’m not telling anybody my truth, I want them to find their truth and I hope that you will use your medium to keep making these relevant in terms of people having a conversation away from the TikTok that is taking our attention and manipulating us, instilling fear in us, dominating our reason and I want to suggest that reason is losing its reasonableness, the reason is on trial unless we can come back to reason away from these gadgets we have and focus a little bit on what m it could be and I know that you will do much better because you have the instrument to reach out better than I do.

You featured as a committee member of the Federal Government on Armed Forces Council?

The one of Arm forces ruling council I think it was Professor Osinbajo came to Harvard and saw my book on display and he remembered me because we did some work together when he was a lawyer in Lagos as an Attorney General. He looked for me and that’s how he finally found me I think it was through that, that he invited me to come and be part of the Arm forces council.
It was an assignment that was eye-opening because we sort of interrogated the issues of extremism and religion one of the persons we met at that time was Ibrahim El-zazaky he had not met any other person before our committee met with him. We had a Justice of the court of appeal that was our chairman it was a very rewarding and exposing understanding of another aspect of the armed forces ruling council and armed forces. We understood a bit more how the country is saturated and operates from a different angle. It was an honor and a humble opportunity for me to spend about three or four months working on this and we wrote a report that speaks for itself.

Do you think is not one of those reports currently gathering dust?

I think for the most part, most of the results white papers still gather some dust but some things that came out of it was the role of international donor organisations there are several other things that we do that we think are gathering dust but we should also look at the tiny little one that is not so known and I tell you I don’t know about amnesty international differently until I started these cases I saw Amnesty International from a different angle we try to expose some of those issues that we think people should know and investigate a little more if they have time that’s how I found myself and thought in a way that all of us should have an opportunity it shouldn’t be reserved to certain people and that’s why I take objection to have a sort of a plan to rule or stay in power in different ways. We should open it up for a lot of people if everybody is doing well we all are doing well