Shaking hands with Hafsat Abiola

I recently attended a production of Seven, the story of Seven inspirational women, from Afghanistan, Guatemala, Pakistan, Northern Ireland, Cambodia, Russia and of Hafsat Abiola from Nigeria. You may remember the story of Mukhtar Mai, which became international news, she was gang raped as a child by another family as an “honour” punishment, and instead of committing suicide as society expected of her, she brought her rapists to justice and started building schools for women and girls, unfortunately her fight is not over.  The part of each woman was read by an actor, the stories are of pain, but of hope as each woman fought for her own rights and those of others.


Hafsat Abiola from Nigeria, was a student in America when she was asked to sign a petition to release the newly elected Nigerian president, Moshood Abiola from prison, the man was her father.


1993 – Ibrahim Babangida allows elections, but when civilian Moshood Abiola wins, he reneges, annuls the elections and throws Abiola into jail


1998 – Abacha dies suddenly and is succeeded by Major General Abdulsalam Abubakar. Chief Abiola is found dead in his prison cell a month later. (from Bradt Nigeria Guide)


After the production, Hafsat Abiola who was in the audience, spoke about the show, it was the first time she had seen it performed in Nigeria, and also spoke about the work she is doing to campaign for democracy. In April 2011, Nigeria’s 51st year, the next election will be held, Hafsat is part of a campaign called Enough is Enough encouraging people to RSVP, Register to Vote, Select, Vote, Protect your vote by calling for accountability.
 As Nigeria approaches these elections, if you are someone who prays then please pray, for a calm free fair peaceful election, with an outcome that is good for Nigeria and Nigerians.


And whatever happens don’t give up, Hafsat closed with this poem, by Dag Hammarskjold, the second Secretary General of the United Nations, who died in a plane crash during the time he was trying to bring peace to the Congo


Tired
And lonely,
So tired
The heart achesMeltwater trickles
Down the rocks,
The fingers are numb,
The knees tremble.
It is now,
Now that you must not give in.

On the path of the others
Are resting places,
Places in the sun
Where they can meet.
But this
Is your path,
And it is now,
Now that you must not fail.

Weep
If you can,
Weep,
But do not complain.
The way chose you-
And you must be thankful.

Back to Bida!

If you read my blog back in the “summer” if you’re in the Northern hemisphere, you will have read about Bida. We had a project to install efficient wood-burning stoves in a school. Traditionally around 60% of cooking in Nigeria uses a traditional “three stone” fire, causing smoke in the kitchen, which affects peoples’ health, according to the WHO 79,000 Nigerians die annually of Indoor Air Pollution, and burning inefficiently hence using even more wood than is necessary.

Cooking on wood

When I last wrote we were working with GTZ to source an international stove expert, we did and he is Fred Colgan, from Oregon in the US. He agreed to bring three stoves, install them in the school and train the cooks in their use.


DHL – Delivered Horribly Late!


The stoves were shipped with DHL – now we have all seen adverts for DHL, when whatever you need magically arrives at another part of the world the following day! Well not in my experience, our stoves spent a week in Amsterdam, and a week in Lagos, before they finally arrived. But I did learn some new pidgin English in the process. One day when I had progressed from calling DHL four times daily to sitting in their office in Abuja, my contact telephoned his colleague in Lagos to check the whereabouts of our shipment, “call me back sharp sharp the client is in my front!”


Finally the stoves arrived, and then so did Fred. Fred went off to Bida with my colleague Okey to install the stoves and train the cooks, I got to visit for a day and see what progress they were making. When I arrived at Bida, the stoves had been installed, the cooks loved them and were cooking using 12% of the wood they used using a “three-stone fire”. One of the cooks said “with the new stoves, my eyes don’t water, my chest doesn’t hurt, my back doesn’t ache and the baby on my back has stopped crying.”

 Fred was also highly popular with the girls at the school as you can see in the photos!

 Two weeks later we had an official commissioning with the Dr. Mua’zu Babangida Aliyu , Executive Governor of Niger State Government, represented by the Commissioner for Education, who said in his speech, that “we (the government) shall ensure that this pilot programme goes into all our boarding schools”.

This is me and the Swiss Ambassador, the Swiss Embassy funded the project

Fred and his fan club!

Cooking on wood, part 2!