An Internal Push

Pastor Jideonwu, President, ECCIMA.

Female entrepreneurs in the South east and South south geo-political zones are stimulated by promises of a better life at a forum organised by the Enugu State chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (ECCIMA)
By Anene Ugoani, Enugu
There is no gainsaying the fact that the well-attended two-day women entrepreneurship forum, held in Enugu, made the desired impact on the participants. For one, it strengthened the confidence of women who are already in business. Just as it also helped several other participants to overcome their business-fright and the age-old worry of finding seed money to start a business of their own. The women themselves said as much at the close of the pep- talks given by eminent resources persons.
From Thursday, July 24 through Friday, July 25, 2008, the vast conference hall of the Protea Hotel, Nike Lake, Enugu, venue of the event, was filled to capacity by women in different lines of business, Women groups, such as the National Council of Women Societies (NCWS) and Enugu Women Cooperative Alliance (ECWA) as well as scores of rural women from the South east and South south geo-political zones.
They were there in their numbers, to attend the maiden edition of the forum organised by the Enugu Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (ECCIMA) on behalf of the South east and South south Chambers, with the chief aim of getting women, who stay home all day, to come out and try their might in commercial undertakings.
Wife of the vice-president, Mrs. Patience Goodluck Jonathan, was the chief guest of honour at the event, while the Enugu State Governor, Sullivan Iheanacho Chime, was the chief host. The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) National Woman Leader, Mrs. Josephine Anenih, Professor Uche Azikiwe, wife of the late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the deputy governors of Anambra and Imo States, Dame Virgy Etiaba and Lady (Dr.) Ada Okwuonu, also graced the forum as well as made informed contributions that went a long way in allaying the fears of a lot of women about venturing into business.
The resource persons who presented well-researched papers at the forum, some of which were on the radical side, included Chief (Mrs) Loretta Aniagolu, Managing Partner, FIT Consult Limited, her younger sister, Dr. (Mrs) Chichi Aniagolu-Okoye, Deputy Programme Director at the Eurpean Union (EU), the Anglican Bishop of Enugu Diocese, Dr. Emmanuel Chukwuma, Mrs Evelyn Oputu, MD/CEO, Bank of Industry and Mrs. Modupe Adelaja, Director General, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN).
Setting the tone at the forum in his welcome speech, the ECCIMA president, Pastor Olisaemeka Jideonwo, explained that the chamber organised the event to enhance the capacity of women to actively participate in economic development, in spite of the various constraints and challenges they faced. All the same, he said, women had been recognised as very important players in the development process.
The chamber, Jideonwa stated, would, therefore, want the forum to find ways of mitigating the challenges Nigerian women faced with a view to helping them attain their full potentials in whatever they were interested in. He said although about 20 per cent of the womenfolk had overcome the various constraints put in their way and were forging ahead in life, the other 80 per cent could still not find their way through.
“It is, therefore, our belief that building capacity for women through training and mentoring, and through this kind of forum, is very vital in actualising the destiny of women as catalysts in national development efforts. There is no doubt that the resource persons assembled here would deal exhaustively with the constraints and challenges that have hindered the active participation of women in economic development,” Jideonwo added.
Declaring the forum open, the deputy governor of Enugu State, Sunday Onyebuchi, who represented the governor at the event, said the Chime administration had always regarded men and women as equal partners and stakeholders in its development efforts. He expressed the hope that the forum would stimulate the interest of women in business and thus lead to, their becoming financially independent.
“For us in Enugu State, we see men and women as equal partners and stakeholders in our development efforts. And this accounts for the decision of the government to create the Ministry of Gender Affairs in the state. This government will continue to support women enterpreneursihp development through the SMEs Services Centre in Enugu,” Onyebuchi stated.
In a message of goodwill she sent to the forum, the wife of the vice president, the chief guest of honour, noted that the theme of the event,“Women As Catalysts For Economic Development,” was not only timely, but strategic in the nation’s efforts to realise the vision 2020 project of making the Nigerian economy one of the top 20 economies in the world.
Represented by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) former National Woman Leader, Mrs. Josephine Anenih, Mrs. Goodluck said there was no doubt that women played significant roles to complement the efforts of the men in nation-building.
“This is evident in Genesis 2:18 where it is stated that God created man and knowing that without a woman, man will not function effectively. He created the woman to be a helper to the man. Let me, therefore, state that empowering women, is among the paramount challenges facing the world today, including Nigeria,” Mrs Jonathan said.
Mrs. Anenih, apologised to the participants for the inability of the vice-president’s wife to attend the event in person, saying it was because Mrs. Goodluck had to rush to Yenagoa, the Bayelsa capital, to be present at the burial of her sister-in-law.
Addressing the participants, Etiaba said women constituted a critical segment of the population that occupied a distinct position in the national scheme of things. Their numerical strength, she stated, could be put to advantage if it was judiciously utilised for development purposes.
The Anambra State deputy governor noted that as women had the primary role of child upbringing, the allotted role implied that the development of human beings into well-meaning individuals, useful to the family and the society at large, depended on women.
“However, this fact is enhanced when a women is educated because education broadens the woman’s reasoning ability and knowledge of child upbringing. Again, the rural women, despite their limitations, academically, cannot be ignored in the economy of the nation”, she argued, pointing out that they were largely responsible for the production of crops, food processing, preservation of crops and distribution of yields from farm centers to urban areas.
She identified the factors that inhibit the active participation of women in economic development as: lack of education obnoxious traditions, habits and beliefs about women and lack of funds. Lack of education, she noted, had limited the participation of women in the formulation of policies at the highest levels of government.
On her part, the deputy governor of Imo state, Mrs. Okwuonu, who spoke off hand because her aides forgot her written speech at the Government House in Owerri, insisted that any woman who could manage the family feeding money in such a way that no child is left hungry or down with Kwashiorkor at the end of the month, could run any business outfit very well.
Mrs. Okwuonu, who was a member of ECCIMA and a hotel owner before she got elected into office last year, said due to her economic background, she was over qualified to give a talk on how best not to ruin a business. In order to succeed in business, she said, a woman must have a vision and a plan, strongly believing that a woman could be a millionaire, like men, muster courage to borrow money from the bank, as well as shun foreign dresses in order to conserve funds.
Her narrative of how she obtained a bank loan with great difficult to start a hotel business in Enugu, and her allegation that banks were no longer “ losing billions and trillions of naira” because they had fired the thieving male staff and replaced them with female staff, provoked a lot of laughter.
In her paper, Mrs. Loretta Aniagolu defined economic development as the process by which a nation increases the knowledge, life expectancy and income of its citizens. It is quite different from economic growth, she argued. “We should note that economic development is very different from economic growth. Economic growth only captures the increase in income of a nation but does not consider how that income is redistributed and shared to improve the welfare of the society.
“Therefore, sometimes dishonest Economists, though knowing that the standard of living is declining in a country, deceive their governments and confuse the people by laying emphasis on only economic growth, claiming the economy is growing”, she disclosed.
The FIT Consult boss identified lack of funds as one of the factors that hinder the active participation of women in economic development efforts in the country, suggesting that Nigeria could emulate Senegal that instituted a programme where only women could borrow subsidised funds for trading. For a woman to make it in business, Loretta, like Mrs. Okwuonu said, she must “dream dreams” of hitting it big.  
Her younger sister, Chichi, who talked on the need for women to be mentored by other women who had been in business appealed to mentors to be honest in counseling their clients.