Dear Mbi,
Every 11th October is the International Day of the Girl Child. I salute you on the 2014 celebration. Just a few words: I hear them say a girl child is less valuable in Africa. That you, my dear Mbi, are the weaker sex, have low family value because you do not carry the family name and that your premium is highest in the kitchen. There are even more tales but I ask you: What do you believe? Do you really believe that your Creator made you lesser in essence? Do you think your intelligence quotient has a traditional benchmark? Now, those are questions you cannot duck away from; but there is even more.
You must have heard that the Girl Child empowerment is a waste. That educational opportunities should tilt in favour of your brother, Boiy. Grand ma said that when you grow up, like all women, it is your job to singly build your home and only a foolish woman leaves her home, no matter the abuse. It has been told to you that in worship centres, you have no voice and your highest faith is practiced in veiled silence and not on the pulpit. Of course, you remember that you have been told that your highest achievement is Mrs. Somebody and you have no inheritance with your father or husband since you have no last name.
Rise up my girl. Walk up to the mirror. Tell me what you see. Do you see a wimp or a winner? Do you see a champion or a loser? I’m sorry I can’t help your seeing but I am here to guide you and give you a few tips which should serve as your map as you travel down life’s confusing, thorny and tortuous path.
In the beginning, God made both man and woman. He believed none could exist without the other. He placed no importance of one over the other. If tradition has skewed the original plan to say differently, it is your choice to use the original plan or accept the distorted one.
Typically, you will be enrolled for primary education with your brother. You would find many other girls like you in the primary school. The number of your female friends in school will drop as you move to Secondary school. It is your choice to belong with the 4.38million girls out of school or join those who brace it to the winning tape. It won’t be an easy decision for you to make. You will be told that girls should marry as soon as they begin to menstruate, that girls who go to school end up wayward and without husbands. There would be the myths and the tough realities. When you get to that cross road, have courage my girl to say no to the easier way and yes to the tough path that leads you to self realization.
Yet your journey would not stop at that cross road. When your body begins to carve out in the coke bottled –figure that herald feminine beauty, you would be made all manners of offers. Your father’s mates would want to steal your innocence, your lecturer would want you to give your body for grades. Old randy men would ogle over your beauty. But remember, your value is not only in your lips, hips and fingertips .If you fall for the cotton candy words, you will waste away in a forlorn desert. Pursue Knowledge as far as China.
There will come a time when the wedding bells will jingle. Look before you leap. Do not be a trophy to Ricardo, another object to possess. Go with the man who loves, values and respects you. Grandma said you must bear the cross of violence and abuse like most women do but no, Mbi, resist it. It is a needless cross. Your marriage must not be a Golgotha but a safe haven. Your man should push you to be the best of you not diminish you. This must be for you an irreducible minimum.
You would be told that some vocations are for men. That politics is for prostitutes. That women who were submissive in scriptures were so termed because of their piety and no more. Nothing could be more false Mbi. Those are all tale-tales designed to discourage you from the life you were created to live. Discard them like filthy rags. Put your best foot forward. Keep at it until you have unleashed everything the good Lord deposited in you. At the graveyards are buried potentials. Determine to die empty.
It cannot be overstated. Get fully kitted for your journey. Fear your Creator and imbibe character. Let a good name be to you more valuable than rubies. Do not get carried away by the glitters of the Joneses. It is all foil; moreover, you are an enviable Joan. Do not put your life in a needless rat race with others. Life is not a competition but a lone customized path on which we travel.
The theme for the 2014 celebration is Empowering Adolescent Girls: Ending the Cycle of Violence. The society is too busy to empower you Mbi. There are beautiful International and Domestic instruments such as the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) 1989, African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, The Child Rights Act 2003 and The Nigerian Constitution. You must make these aspiration documents come alive by insisting on them.
I know you have heard of the story of the Chibok girls. That really sad tale of how over 200girls were abducted from their school. It is heartbreaking that these girls are trapped in the most horrific conditions that no child should experience. I wish our country had done more.I wish Nigeria had declared a national emergency shortly after that incident and cordoned everywhere until our princesses were brought home. Today the story has been reduced to a political chess game and a metaphor of our immunity to pain.
And it is on that sad note I would like to round up this letter as I say to you what I hope you will keep close to your chest all lifelong. Never get used to the tragedies in our country. Say no to it. Push evil far away from you. Let it not rest its nest at your abode. Do not, I repeat, do not see people through the coloured rim of religious, ethnic, regional, national or any form of sentiments. All life is created by God and you give Him the biggest reverence and worship when you treat them with respect for God loves people more than anything. I have to let off here my dear Mbi. But do you understand, that all I have said in this letter would be the thoughts I would want to leave with you while on my dying bed? Yes they are. So, if I mean anything to you cherish these words of mine. Have courage, my girl to say no to all evil, myths, lies and stereotypes and you would find more meaning for your life.
