Top on her agenda is her passion for WOMEN EMPOWERMENT, which includes implementing programs, which is a social protection cash transfer project that is disbursed to 1800 women across the 14 LGAs in the state.
Second is MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH, where she is looking at the poor indices of maternal mortality in the state and currently disbursing ‘mamakit’ for pregnant women which include medical supplies for safe delivery among others.
Third is GIRL CHILD EDUCATION. Due to the low indices of girl child literacy, the First Lady conducted a tour of some girls’ focal schools in Gusau, to assess the needs of the schools and encourage enrolling and retention. It is in this light, that she eased the burden on parents by providing 5,000 educational kits to young girls.
Fourth is the COVID19 response where she initiated several COVID-19 programs aimed at cushioning the effect of the lock down on women and children.
Fifth is GENDER BASED VIOLENCE, where she has implemented programs that have contributed to the increasing voices of relevant stakeholders across the state to the scourge on girl child.
Childhood memories
My childhood was a pretty normal childhood, average and culturally dramatic. I come from a very large extended family. My dad was an Emir, so he was pretty cultural. I stayed in Abuja most of my growing up years. I was brought up there, went to school there and then I furthered my education in Dubai, where I studied Business Information System, then I came back to Nigeria where I completed at Nile University.
I remember days when my dad kept pushing me to study. He is so pro-education. He didn’t get to go to school himself, so, he knows the importance of education and what you miss out on. I had a very large family and it taught me how to be competitive among siblings and that shaped who I am today.
Reality of being the First Lady
It was quite overwhelming in the beginning. It was a whole new life. You always have to be composed. You always have to be calm. You’re always in public or on TV and you always know how to be calm. You’re always watching yourself basically.
But every other thing is fine. I find it very interesting when I do something nice, something that touches someone’s life and they pray so much for you. You just feel so good and rewarding. So, it’s quite interesting. I would call it an interesting journey so far. It feels good to be able to make influential changes.
Do you feel overwhelmed by the expectations of the office?
It feels overwhelming like I mentioned, in the beginning. Sometimes, it’s also heart breaking when you see some situations. Being in this office, I tell so many people, that I have grown so much from who I used to be, because I have the ability to see life in different forms, and it’s sometimes heart breaking and there’s nothing you can really do. The little you can do, you keep wondering, is it enough long term to help this person’s life? At the same time, it feels good when you impact positivity in someone’s life.
So, it’s a just a mix of emotions. Like a rollercoaster of emotions. I interact with people more on a daily basis. It’s better than what my interaction was like before.
Passion for women empowerment
The programme was initiated while we emerged office. We were discussing with the governor on a road trip back to Abuja from Zamfara, and he kept saying, what plans do you have for women? What are you going to do for women? In fact, he pushed me to come up with programmes. The programme is basically empowering 1,800 women every month with N20, 000 each. It’s supposed to be capital for small scale businesses. The reason behind this programme is to see how we can reduce the level of poverty among women. The truth is, Zamfara women are so hard working, and they always want to be self-reliant. You find women doing tiny businesses just to get ahead of their family issues. So, we have 14 local government areas (LGAs) in the state. We divided these forms into 100 forms for each LGA, and for Gusau, we gave 200 forms because it’s the capital and it’s larger. Extra 100 forms we use for groups, like IDP groups, Fulani groups, different groups like that, we divide the forms amongst them. We’re trying to reach everyone as much as we can, and the priority of the programme is the grassroot because you might see pictures on the internet of my coordinators going into boats just to get to where these people who are dire need are. We give them and tell them that there is a monitoring committee that will come back to check if they are doing what they are supposed to be doing with the money, if they are engaged in a small-scale business or not.
First Lady of Zamfara state, Aisha Bello Matawalle
How does the money reach them?
When you’re talking about the grassroot, you don’t think of account details because most of them don’t have. We have a group of coordinators that go down to these remote villages with the funds. We go door-to- door. We follow the system of ward-to-ward. In each ward, we pick out areas and we enter houses randomly because we’re trying to reach out to everyone, not PDP, APC, or whatever your party is, it’s for everybody.
So, they go out, fill the forms for these women and get their information, contact details and everything and then they tell them to come into town on a particular day because we will be disbursing money to them. After filling the forms and the monitoring committee evaluates everything and makes sure that the women who are getting this grants are actually in need of it, then we come back at the end of the month to their local government, and these women come from all their places because they have been told that on this day, they should come and collect their money.
Sometimes, some don’t show up but it’s usually a very little number, and because we have their information, we try to reach out and call them to come and pick it up at the empowerment office.
I have thought of the whole banking method, but it’s going to be very difficult to reach out to women in the villages. We’re still doing a lot of sensitisation programme, working with a bank to see how we can get these women to get accounts open as much as possible.
Do you do a follow up to ensure the money is used appropriately?
Yes. I have a monitoring and evaluation committee that does that does that. What we do, usually, after about three months, six months, we go back to everywhere we’ve gone to just to check. Honestly, not everybody uses the money for business 100 percent, I can’t blame them because of the level of poverty. But most of them do.
Maternal and Child Health
I am quite involved in that area as well. We currently have this ‘Mamakits’ for pregnant women all over the 14 local governments. We have been sensitizing and creating awareness, trying to let women know that there is this bag that contains everything you need for delivery.
More so, we are also telling women to visit their local Primary Health Centres, register and do their follow up there. We let them know that they will have everything they need. You don’t need to bring money. You can come, have your safe delivery there. So, that’s the whole point of the Mamakits programme. We’re trying to see how we can go round the 14 local governments. We had since wanted to do it but COVID-19 put everything on hold. I am glad to say that we’re back at it again. I believe it will have a lot of impact because it will be a reason a lot of women will begin to visit the hospital.
Girl Child Education
Education is something I am passionate about. It’s something that I’m grateful to my parents for making sure I achieved in life. I grew up knowing that education is something you must have in your life. Coming out and being in position of power, the first time I had a conversation with the governor and what he wanted me to focus on, I said education. Here in Zamfara, you see young girls having the zeal to go to school. That’s why I keep saying that there is this misconception about Zamfara and how the north is in general.
I remember in the beginning of everything, I was stuck in a tweet about this young girl called Fatima, who treks two miles to go to school on a daily basis just to get educated. And that is just so beautiful. It’s something you don’t see everywhere. I remember calling her parents and having a one-on-one with her and she was just so shy. But you can see that she just wants to go to school. We empowered her parents with a motorcycle so they could be able to transport her to school daily and at the same time use it as a source of income.
There is an Education Kit that we’ve been giving out before COVID-19 which we stopped during the pandemic period, but it’s something that we can’t wait to get back to. We empower these children with these bags. It contains everything you need for school. It has 12 exercise books and writing materials. In some of the kits, we try to get some of them school uniforms, but we had to take it out because it was eating up our time. School bags, shoes, socks, writing material, everything in one bag, we give out to the children and also enroll most of them in school.
The goal is to enroll as much as we can. There are a lot of girls who have the zeal to go to school, but are not privileged to. With this empowerment programme, sometimes I try to kill two birds with a stone. When we empower the parents, we ask if they have children and if the children are going to school. Most of them keep these children back so they can send them to the street, so they sell and bring money back home. What we then decided to do was that, when we empower these women, we tell them; ‘okay we’re empowering you, now let your children go to school,’ and it just makes things easy at the same time. It’s a moving train.
Challenges
Sometimes you enroll the children and then you hear they don’t go to school anymore, after a while they stop. Sometimes it’s just difficult to reach out and talk to the parents and make them understand why they should allow their children go to school.
There is nothing I’m working on that does not have challenges in the office. Everything. The women empowerment, the maternal health, name it…however, we keep strategising. I knew there were going to be challenges, I expected them. So, it is just something that I would say motivates me because the more you try to stop my moving train, the more I push further.
Then you hear news that you’re not doing the right thing, you’re doing it wrong. There are always people that want to stop the work that is going on, but you must never listen to such negative criticisms. I remember getting blasted some time ago on Twitter over the Fatima girl. But it just never stops me because I know I’m here for a reason.
Sometimes you get so frustrated, and I’m like ‘I don’t even want to go to the office anymore. I’m done,’ but after 10 minutes, I’m like ‘it’s not because of them, let’s just go.’
Gender-based violence
We have this coalition, Nigerian Governors’ Wives Against Gender-Base Violence (GBV), I don’t think there is any woman who is not passionate about gender-based violence and working on this field is one of the most emotional work I have done. Sometimes, I find myself in tears when I see reports, and hear different types of stories from different places, you basically have no choice but to work and do what you can.
Currently in the state, we’re working on pushing the VAPP Law and Child Rights Act Law into adoption but we have a GBV state management committee that will very soon be inaugurated by the governor of the state and we are working with the Islamic group too. There are a few provisions of the law that contradict with the Sharia law, those parts of the law do not protect the child or the woman from being molested or raped. The beauty of it is that, even the religion frowns at such acts.
We expunged the parts that keep contradicting with the Sharia Law and we have a very good working relationship with the Council of Ulama and they have given us all the support we need to move forward with these bills that we need to push.
We’ve done a lot of advocacies, we’ve done a lot of campaigns towards those laws getting to where they are and we can’t wait. We’re working tirelessly to get Zamfara to be among the states that have adopted these laws and I believe it will be something huge for Zamfara State to get these laws adopted.
We’re working with a lot of traditional rulers and they’ve never been more supportive. You hear a lot of them saying things like “let’s not just get these girls married, let’s get them educated”. It’s something beautiful. We have one of such centres in the capital of the state. We’ve supported them with a few rape kits and other support they requested from us. We’ve done a lot of radio programmes for sensitisation just so people can be aware about how horrifying these issues are. We currently have a lot planned for the 16 days of Activism, we can’t wait.
Aisha Bello Matawalle
What makes Zamfara tick?
The people are so receptive. The culture, so beautiful. The food is amazing. You need to have a lot of cold fura. They don’t use a lot of yoghurt in their fura in Zamfara, it’s mostly the millet and they pound it with so much spices and it just makes you so relaxed when you drink. We have architectural history. The palaces are full of stories. The nature, the rocks on the way. I always take pictures when I travel. Have you ever seen a cotton farm? It’s so beautiful.
Advise to that young promising northern girl
Don’t give up on school. Education is very challenging, most especially for the female and most especially in the north, but it is something that makes you feel so accomplished and confident. It brings out so much potential in you that you never knew you had. It’s definitely not something that any parent will regret allowing their child to do. It’s something that gives you an opportunity to be who you want to be, to make a change in this world.
Don’t give up. Go to school and be motivated and strive as hard as you can. If you fail, pack your bags and come back tomorrow, that’s the beauty of it all. Just go to school and study hard. Without education, I don’t think I’d be able to come here today and do all of those things that I’m doing. I’m so grateful that I have this and I’m looking forward to achieving more in education.
