Bekeme: Well, hello, guys. This is Bekeme aka Mummy G.O., the one and only you’re listening to the Good Citizens show. How has your week been? Mine has been long but very fulfilling because we had our 11th conference, our 11th Sustainability and Extractive Industries Conference. It’s called SITEI for short. So if you hear me saying SITEI throughout, that’s what I’m talking about. It’s a mouthful but trust me, this is a very useful conference that we’ve had to have. I’m glad that for the past three years or so, we’ve had the sponsorship of Ford Foundation to have these pertinent discussions. As of today, over 90 % of our government revenues actually come from the oil and gas sector. Oil and gas industry, beg your pardon, because oil and gas and mining make up the sector or industries, as I like to say. It’s very important that if we’re talking about governance in Nigeria, we talk about this sector. In my opinion, if you embed sustainability practices that is managing the way that we look after the environment, social activities, and even governance, if we manage it properly in that sector, then it is the same as embedding sustainability practices in every other sector in Nigeria because the majority of what the government does comes from there.
So if there’s corruption there, then it means that everybody accepts corruption in every other part. If there is disregard for people and communities there, it means that every other sector will take a lead. And we see that happening a lot now in the mining space. We see that a lot of… There are a lot of atrocities. We see that a lot from the Chinese. I was just watching a video today, and there’s this mineral that they say is worth 430 dollars per gram, but that we don’t officially mine in the country. However, crates of it go out daily from this country. Other countries like Canada are ramping up. Malaysia, they are ramping up the production of minerals like lithium, and barium, to meet this new grain transition. They’re making sure that there’s proper governance around this to make the most of it. Make tons of money, of course, but do not harm people. But then what are we doing? That’s why we have these discussions. When we typically have them, people just think, which one is this serious talk again? But you see that serious talk now, they look after a person in the long term. It’s a discussion that we had to have.
I’m also excited that we had our fourth Community and Human Rights Award. God, I think that’s the most important thing to me. I think that’s one of the most important things that we’ve done at CSR-in Action, because every time we see people being recognised for singing music, or sewing clothes, which are not bad things. But the people who win car awards are people who truly care about the communities that they come from. These are the people who fight the battles that others do not fight, who take time off their busy, grueling schedules in this unkind world to look after people, to fight for human rights. They come from all over Africa. The good thing is that this year we now have endowments, that is cash awards given to two categories of the CA awards, the Apostle Hayford’s Alile Award and the Josephine Nkemdilim Masade Award, which is actually named after my mother, two cash prizes for those. But for the others, we currently don’t have them. We’re hoping that community-minded people, people who are big on people, on development, who are listening can reach out to us and say, you know what? I’m going to endow this particular award, Aminu Kanu award for Leadership, because we’ve named them after great people that are leaving this nation from different tribes. My mother was an unrecognized great. So that’s her legacy. Her legacy is me being able to do this in her name. And we want people to like you, if you’re listening, you work with a corporate or you’re successful in your own right, reach out to us at sitei.org. Oh God, why wouldn’t I say that nicely? I’m so bad at marketing. That’s why today we have two people in the house to basically just give us a rehash of what happened during SITEI. Somebody’s laughing here because they knew that they were compared for but I would not give them free time to praise them. But somebody that we all knew was compared for the day. At his best, if you saw his suit, I want to be like him when I grow up. Obed, the Obed. We had him come here and it was such a great event. It was such a great event. I really enjoyed myself for the first time that we were having this.
Typically, I’ll just be running around like a headless chicken, but I did enjoy myself. I did get to meet the speakers that came. It felt like a fulfilling experience. So kudos to the CSR in Action team. Well done to everyone who put it together. I see one of them healing herself here like patting herself on the back. Okay, so I have two people today to discuss this with me. You can call in, you can ask questions. The reason why we’re featuring them is one of them is the winner of the Josephine Nkemdilim Masade Award for Equal Rights. She is representing WARIF organisation is Dr. Makunjuola, who’s a medical doctor, and works with WARIF. WARIF is the Women at Risk International Foundation Center. WARIF Center. She’s come to talk about their work, how it relates to what they were voted for, and what it feels like to have won this award. I also have with me today Favor, the accidental volunteer. Favor was a volunteer on the day and she was all over the place. She is a young graduate and decided to give her time to it and she did give it all.
I just want to have a conversation with these two beautiful ladies with me today. Don’t cancel me because these days now if you see a woman coming for somebody and say is beautiful, say, If you say, Ma, will you say handsome? Well, but here they’re beautiful and they’re here with me and they’re here to talk about how they felt during the season. Welcome to the show, ladies.
Ladies: Thank you very much. Thank you.
We even have Chioma, our event manager, extraordinary coming. We have Chioma. Thelma is looking at me like, Why didn’t you call my name since? I’ve been here doing all of the work. I have my colleagues as well. Thelma is here, Thelma Emiri. She’s the one and only social media manager. She helped a lot with the voting, the nominations, the award around CAHR. We had jurors attend this. The jurors came on the day, and two of them could come. The others are from different parts of Africa. It was a transparent person. That’s one of the things we thought we might do. When we came up with this, we’re like, you know what? We want awards that are totally above board. That’s what we’re trying to do every year that we do. So Chioma was our in-house event manager. Chioma, come and say hello to everyone.
Chioma: Hello.
Bekeme: Everyone. Okay. She’s not usually that soft. This is just for radio. Okay. Chioma, hungry as you just said, it’s a problem. Okay, so I’m going to start with WARIF. WARIF, just tell us a bit more about WARIF and how you came to be at SITEI Conference on Tuesday was Tuesday the 22nd in a second and how you felt about the entire experience.
WARIF: Thank you for having me. No problem. It’s a pleasure being here. I work with WARIF, Women at Risk International Foundation as the center manager. WARIF, for short, I’ve got a mouthful, as you said. It’s a nongovernmental organisation that was founded in 2016 by Dr. Kemi Dasilva Ibru a consultant, obstetrician, and gynecologist. It was founded on a vision that was to support survivors of rape and sexual assault. And over the years, we have attended to over 3,000 survivors of rape and sexual assault who are mostly girls and women. And we have also gone as far as raising awareness about rape and sexual assault across the country. We have three pillars, which is one, the intervention, which is the Warwick Center, where we see survivors of rape and sexual assault and we provide medical and forensic services for them. And we also ensure that they have access to counseling, which they engage with professional counselors we have at the center, as well as group therapy for those that really want to talk about it and get to know that they are not alone in this fight. And we have also educational programs, which is part of the campaign.
About sexual and gender-based violence, mostly in schools. And we have the girl’s program, which is the Worry for Educational Girls program, where we’ve engaged over 10,000 girls across legal states and other states of the federation. We also felt that boys shouldn’t be left out of the conversation because they to survivors. And we also want to preach the message that boys can be protectors and not perpetrators. Because people that’s the tendency where there’s this myth that men carrying out rape or sexual assault is like it transitioned to manhood, is to demystify that notion among boys. And so we go to schools to raise awareness about gender-based violence and to encourage boys to speak out in cases like this. Because most of the time boys do not talk about gender-based violence because they are ashamed of it. They feel they’ll be mocked, they’ll be stigmatised, because apparently they’re supposed to be strong, men should accept, they should be happy. It’s like a transition to a man. So, a lot of boys die in silence, so to speak, and so this gives them an avenue to talk. So, we bring men who are mentors, so they feel comfortable talking about these issues that probably would have felt embarrassed to speak to their parents or people close to them.
And so that in itself has enabled us to be able to raise more awareness about this issue. And we go beyond just the education to talk about reaching out to the community, the grassroots. Not everybody can have access to social media to know what we’re talking about when it comes to gender-based violence. And so we take the message to the grassroots, right? And so, we engage traditional, better tendons, we engage the police, the religious leaders, those that are what we call gatekeepers, the leaders in the community that are respected to take this message to the community about gender-based violence, supporting survivors, to speak out, to reduce and discourage stigmatization and victimization of survivors. So, they encourage them to speak, report cases, and seek medical and psychosocial attention to prevent long-term complications. And so that is part of what we’ve been doing these past six years. And so, we’ve gone beyond that to raise awareness. And we know we get a lot of people saying how can they contribute. How can they raise awareness in their own way? And we use our new initiative, which is the WARIF No Tolerance walk, which we started three years ago, and we are continuing this year.
Bekeme: That is my daughter’s birthday. I’ve told her that, work with me. And I said, don’t worry, we’ll go to breakfast afterward. And she’s like, okay, then, what time in my calendar? Okay, so the walk is from the bridge in Lekki phase one. Yes.
So we are starting off from the Filling station, Lekki phase one, all the way down to the Lekki-Link Bridge.
Bekeme: Okay? Yes.
WARIF: So, we’re starting at seven west.
Bekeme: Are you walking on the bridge all the way to Ikoyi
Yes. And then you turn back.
Bekeme: Mommy, are you sure you can do it? I’m like we did your little legs. Are you challenging me? But we’ll do it. We’ll be there. How do people register for this?
WARIF: Oh, no, you don’t need to just be there. Just turn up. Just turn up.
Bekeme: Okay, that sounds good. So, did you know that you were going to win this award when you apply? Who applied for it? Was it you or was it somebody else?
WARIF: I think somebody else did.
Bekeme: Really?
WARIF: Yeah. We were really amazed when we got the call that we had been nominated for the award. And it was quite exciting because you do this work and you want to be appreciated, like every good work we do and being recognised for the work we’ve been doing these past years. And it’s really a validation that we’re doing something right, that we are really impacting lives. I think that’s essentially what working in this space. It’s all about impacting the lives of those people who ordinarily do not have the opportunity to speak their through, to talk about this menace. And we’re really appreciative that we are recognized for the award, and not just any award. We awarded Josephine Nkemdilim, which means a lot to you.
Bekeme: And I think that this truly exemplifies what she stood for. She wasn’t necessarily about women like activism, but she was about providing opportunities for people, making sure and that’s why it was called Equality Award after her. That’s what she stood for, humanitarian efforts and just making sure that people had the opportunity to be more right. And when you rescue women from abusive relationships, then they have the opportunity to be more. To be more. So I’m very excited about the work that you’re doing. Full disclosure, I’ve known of WARIF. I know. Dr. Kemi Ibru. But I wasn’t involved in the nomination process or in the voting process. And then when the jurors then gave scores and all of that. But I was glad to see that worry did.
WARIF: We’re really excited about it. We’re excited.
Bekeme: That’s great.
Bekeme: Thank you so much favor.
Bekeme: You’re welcome. So, what did you feel like when you arrived? Nagel. Did you ever think, you know what?
Favour: In a few days, I will be expecting to be part of what I was part of, but I say that I feel happy and excited that I was involved in the whole process, the whole planning. The meetings that I was part of were impactful up until the time when we went for the program at Four points. I think it was a very great event. The people that came, the caliber of people that were there. Timba. Yeah. Timba. I was very excited, definitely.
Bekeme: So, what did you learn from this experience? What’s your takeout from it?
Favor: What I learned from these experiences, well if you look at the people that were nominated, these are people that have made an impact. They are doing something; they are opening their feet. They’re not just sitting there looking at things go by. So, I have learned to stand up and stand for something. Stand for something that is good. I know work to make sure that I’m making an impact somewhere, anywhere, and definitely, I will be recognized one way or the other.
Bekeme: So, you amongst others, favor did sing us the national anthem. Impromptu boy was yeah, I know. She was at Beyonce.
It was the first answer. It was the first dancer. Every time we have to say, I’m always threatened I will sing the national anthem this time I’m like, and I’ll check out, boss. Favor. I mean, the famous Gen Z, like, you know what, last minute, can you sing it? And she was like, sure. And she came for it and she gave us the rendition of Life, you know, Chioma. I was shaking in my boots, but I don’t think thank you to the hall. In our hall. Thank you. So, Choima, what was it like for you yourself?
Chioma: Okay, this is my first time at PC, and I was part of the organising committee.
Bekeme: Oh, how humble. It was.
Chioma: Part of it was a big deal. As Favour said, the timber and caliber of people that came, was really a great discussion for the PIA to the binding activity and to the ESG framework. It was obvious that the speakers were quite passionate about what they were doing and the changes that they expected. It was personal, there are a lot of things I learned. I didn’t know that having a bow holding your house was kind of threatening.
We understand that. Okay. You’re taking something from the earth and then you’re leaving it blank. So, when you have, for example, like 100 houses in an estate, most of the time everybody has their hole. Why does everybody need to have theirs? What does that translate to? We’re having 100 different holes. That means we are having vacuums everywhere. So, what are we expecting for the next 5-10 years? So, it was really I was like, wow, my own house is part of that. So, I’m like, I’m contributing now. This is not some vague ghd admissions now. This is you see yourself and how you’re contributing negatively. I’m part of that. So, it was really an eye-opener because most of the time we think that we are not part of it because we’re not in the big company, but we are actually contributing one way or the other. As Professor 𝗢𝗽𝗮𝗳𝘂𝗻𝘀𝗼 said, when you’re going on the road, you throw your bottle of water out of the and you’re contributing stick. So, everybody needs to step up. It’s not just the big companies. It starts with you. The change starts with me. And then as each person is doing their bit, then we can see the change that we want.
Bekeme: Preach it, Preach it Chioma. Somebody is in the spirit. Thelma, you better come and contribute to what you learn during SITEI. We would like to hear what you learned. Come on, Thelma. Come on. Come on. We want to encourage everyone who’s listening to see themselves to situate themselves in the challenges that we have and to situate themselves, even more importantly, in the solution. So, these are not vague discussions that older men and women in suits in fancy offices should be talking about. These are our discussions, and we have the power to bring about the change that we want. Come on. Thelma
Thelma: So the city event was one of a kind for me. I’ve never attended something like that. You probably see me where they are doing heck, what’s like that and all of that, but this one was something that I told myself that in years to come, I will still want to attend. One thing I learned from the CTA conference was about business sustainability. Yeah, we got to talk about oil and gas, the agricultural sector, mining sector, but it all boils down to each one of us. We all might have small businesses, just one or two running and all of that, but when you look at it, there’s not this long-term sustainability plan.
You’re just trying to do one or two together, but there’s not that. What am I doing in the next five years?
Bekeme: What’s the big picture?
Thelma: Yes. How am I contributing to my community? It doesn’t have to be your whole country. It doesn’t have to be really that big. So, it starts with little things you could do and that’s one thing I picked for me. So, shout out to the CSR-in-Action.
Bekeme: Since Obed doesn’t want to, we must BUGA for ourselves. So, yeah, absolutely on point. Absolutely on point. Because I was saying to a team member in the car as I was coming, I was saying, you know what? When we opened our office in Canada and I had to be away for seven weeks, I started to understand even more the power that the people have. Right? Government is such a big body of diverse individuals that what we term government in, quote, doesn’t necessarily know how to do what is best for the people. So, it’s people who live in communities. And when we say communities, we’re not talking about necessarily rural, we’re talking about residential areas. It also decides how we want it to be.
Like, we’re thinking about emissions. So, if this new company, a refinery, opens in your area, what are you saying about it? Are you keeping quiet and say, those in the house of residents, why are they letting them? It’s us, you understand. You’re the ones who are going to write, you’re the ones who are feeling it. Right? So, as a final word from WARIF, like, you work in communities. If you don’t work in Niger Delta, like a delta state or some state like that, that has core oil and gas and mining activities, you probably intend to do. So how do you think since we’re talking about inclusion and one of the things we did at the conference was to gain screen for our Earth Women documentary, we speak to specific challenges that women face in the extractives? And if you extrapolate it, it’s the challenges that women face everywhere. How do you think we can foster this inclusion without men creatively, without men feeling like a hand? They’ve come again, it’s feminism. It’s not a war. But how can we ensure that everybody has a good quality of life?
WARIF: I think when it relates to just tying it to gender-based violence or equality, it’s not a woman or a man thing. It’s an everybody thing. And it affects everybody. If it’s good, it affects everybody positively. If it’s bad, it affects everybody negatively. So when we talk about this issue, gender-based violence, and when we talk about including everybody, there’s no man, there’s no woman, everyone. So, everyone is involved. And if it affects you, it could be your brother, it could be your sister, it could even be you. And you mentioned everybody in government. Government is not just one big thing. We can’t always leave it to the government. It starts with you. It starts with you noticing that.
Bekeme: Write a petition, write several, and involve your communities.
WARIF: You don’t wait for someone to start it, and you hope someone will start. You can if you see something strong, say something, do something. Just don’t assume that this person next door is going to start it. You can start something. So, it starts with every one of us?
Bekeme: Absolutely. Everybody just says, you know what? I’m protecting my head. I’m afraid. What will happen to me? Then do it anonymously. Send a letter to your friend in another neighborhood to post it in so that they don’t chase it back. But do something. Don’t just sit and look. If there’s a huge bottle before they send people to fix it, like go into the budget. There’s probably a location for it. Ask questions. And then before then, work with your team. Pull something, post, and whatever to block so that you guys don’t spend hours on the road for that something that you can provide temporary relief for. Final words. Next 30 seconds. Favor?
Favor: Yes. Thank you for I was thinking, I will not get this opportunity. There was something I wanted to say when Ms. Chioma was talking, one thing I really learned, I’ll just say it like, as a conclusion, we should stop blaming the government for everything. I know I’m not trying to be the devil’s advocate and be the supporter of Buhari or whatever, but there are certain things which we can take responsibility for. And I just say, oh, the government. The government. If they elect you now, what will you do with the government? There are certain things that we can do to contribute and make sure that things are fine.
Bekeme: This is the Good Citizen Show, people that are making reviews, fingers and say, hey, don’t call names. But thank you so much for listening to the good citizen show. And thank you favor for helping me to do my job. And remember, the WARIF is on the 3rd Quest Filling station at Lekki Phase 1, Admiralty Road. Be there, join the walk, and reach out to us at CSR-in-Action if you want to contribute in some way to our work. Thank you so much for listening to this discussion about our city conference. Take care. See you next week. Bye.
