I’m educated because my father believed in gender equality —Dr Safiya Daniyan

Dr. Mrs. Safiya Yahaya Daniyan, who was born in 1968, is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Microbiology of Federal University of Technology, Minna. She is married to Prof. Yahaya Daniyan, a former Vice-Chancellor of the same university and she has four kids. In this interview, she spoke to ENE OSANG on the challenges of girl-child education and how she became a science student, an area which is considered as the man’s turf, Similarly, she spoke on politics and gender issues

Not many people know you outside the academic circles. Briefly, who is Safiya Daniyan?

My full name is Dr (Mrs) Safiya Yahaya Daniyan. I was born in the 1968 in a village called Pati-Bokungi in Lavun local government area of Niger state. It is in Doko District.

My Primary school education was between 1974 and 1980. After that, I got admission to Gulu Teachers’ college. The school was a mixed school, but as time went on, the boys had to go and its name was changed to Gulu Women Science College. In that school, we had a mixture of Nigerian and Ghanaian teachers.

Personally, I rated the Ghanaians ahead of the Nigerians in terms of teaching. They made impact on me that are indelible in my memory. They had precision in pronunciation that I admired and revered them a lot for that. When I finished from Gulu, I got admission to Federal University of Technology, Minna where I studied Microbiology.

At the time that you started schooling, Nupe parents were not allowing their female children to go to school. Were your parents any different?

My late father was one man that deeply believed in giving every of his children, regardless of sex, an equal right.

My brother was going to school, to do justice to the equality of everything that he believed in, I too was enrolled. Beyond that, he also deeply believed that the world was changing, for that reason, we all must be educated. In my primary school, there were a handful of boys but we were only three girls, including myself. I was the head girl and among the three of us, I was the only one that furthered my education.

Was your father educated?

He was not. He was a farmer and politician. He loved anything politics. Maybe that is why my brother is a politician. I wish my father is still alive till today. He did everything he could do to ensure that we were educated. And from what I depicted of him, he did not just want us to go through school and in the long run get a job and start earning salary. He wanted us to be deeply educated and he struggled very hard to see that his dreams were realized.

Why did you choose to study microbiology, when science courses were seen as difficult, especially for women?

I started my studies at Federal University of Technology (FUT), Minna, as a pre-degree student. Initially, I was to go for Agricultural Sciences, but going into degree programme proper, I was changed to microbiology because that was the year that it was opened in the university and students were needed to fill it up. I was one of the pioneer students of the department.

In those years, especially in the north, the few girls that made it to the university had to be married before their parents or husbands allowed them to further their education. Was your case different?

I got married when I was in 300-level and my first child, a boy, was born in 1989. The boy is now a graduate assistant in the same university. I will say it was a thing of choice and the sort of orientation that one grew up with.

My father had already set up a foundation for me, as he did for each of his children, that I must be well educated and myself, having realized that I ought to be well educated, I decided to break the jinx of giving a university a shot before getting married, thus I got to Federal University of Technology, Minna.

I solidly had my plans and I was articulately heeding to them. Eventually, everything worked out, and here I am today. Glory is to God.

Northern women prefer going for arts courses, why did you go for a science course?

In the secondary school, we were given an exam, those who passed were taken to sciences classes, while those who failed went to the art classes. I passed the exam, so I was taken to the sciences. That was how I became a science student. Right now, if I weigh up who I am, I don’t think I will fit into the arts. From my secondary school days, I had an unflinching love for sciences and I do more today. Maybe it is because of my penchant for innovation and breaking frontiers. You know that is what sciences do.

Having bagged a PhD in your field of study, with the benefit of hindsight, did you wish that you had studied any other science course?

No regret. In fact, I am even proud to be a microbiologist.

Microbiology is a course that everybody should love because when you graduate from it you don’t need to go and loiter around searching for a job, it will enable you to start up a business on your own. It’s a personal experience that I am relating to you here. And I also tell my students that they should not leave the university and be looking for a job. As a microbiologist, you are in a position of creating jobs for others.

So, why did you choose teaching instead of running a business ?

I was to be retained at the hospital where I did my youth service, but when I discussed it with my husband, he said I could probably not cope in the hospital, being a woman. He advised that the best career for a woman should be teaching. I reasoned with him, considering the home front and also giving my office the best of me.

Eventually I went for teaching, starting at the Federal Polytechnic, Bida, where my husband was the rector, as a graduate assistant in 1992.

How do you juggle office and your family?

If I sit to recollect how things were unraveling day after day, I will just say that everything happened miraculously. And I would add that it is because I am married to a supporting and understanding husband.

You know, at times when we leave the house in the morning, we would not see each other until the next morning. You know if it were another husband, he would not have condoned that. My husband has been very understanding and my children too.

You said that your late father was a politician. Did his love for politics affect you in any way?

I don’t think that I can make a good career in politics. Scholars like working so that in the long run results will emerge. In politics, it is never like that.

As a politician, even if you have the intention of working for the benefit of the masses, there would be some evil people who wouldn’t let you do that and if you try to protest, they would be armed with the ways of bringing you down. For goodness sake, there are good people in politics, but the evil people, out of satisfying their selfish interests, won’t let them work. Of course, there are good people in Nigerian politics, but they are often being victimized by the evil forces I said earlier.

So, I would not want to be a party to such rubbish. Everyone wants to work towards societal development, but when one is not given a free hand, the best thing is to stay back.

So if you are given a political appointment now would you accept it?

I don’t think so. I want to work. I love working. Besides, I have got so many things that I want to do that I have not done, and holding a political office would not avail me with the time of doing them. I want to always work to the benefit of my society and the world at large. In politics I don’t think that will be possible.

As a married academic, what challenges have faced in the course of your career?
As a woman it was not easy in the academics.

I spent exactly ten years before having my PhD. If I were a man, I am sure, considering how I usually work hard, it would not have been up to ten years. I had to give some time to the family. So, I think that was my major challenge.

What is your concept of child upbringing?

Education is the best legacy that every parent can bequeath on his children. I don’t joke with my children in terms of education, and when I say education, I am not only talking about western education, I am also talking about Islamic education.

Morally, I also ensure that they are upright, as I do not condone immorality. Beside these two modes of education, I also make them very pliant so that they can know how to live in any kind of situation that they find themselves. You know, apart from my job as a teacher, I am also into poultry, baking and other stress-free businesses.

These businesses, I do them at times just because of my children to learn from me how to live beyond government job. Presently, one of my daughters, the one in 200 level, is learning how to knit clothes. That is how to make a child pliant. They also know how to bake, make different types of drinks like yoghurts, Zobo amongst others.

One of your children is a writer, and she has published a book. Did you influence her in any way?

Influence? I’m a scientist. I’m not into creative writing. All l am into is writing scientific reports. Fatima started out as a reader; she would disturb me to buy her story books. Eventually, she started writing. Earlier, I was not taking her serious, until I showed her works to a senior writer and he said she was writing well. We eventually had one of her works published last year, and it was launched when she was graduating from primary school. Right now, she has other works ready for publication.

Given your experience, what is your advise to women in order to cope with the challenges of marginalization that they face daily?

Let me tell you what I tell my students on a daily basis. I often tell them that marriage, pregnancy, child-bearing and motherhood should never stop them from doing what they want to do in life.

Personally, I had my children when I was a student, and I even got married as a student. If it were another woman, she would have dropped out of school because she was married or she wanted to give birth. Marriage does not stop anything.

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