Her Excellency, Hajiya Hadiza Abubakar, is the First Lady of Bauchi State. She has been able to compliment her husband’s effort by initiating a non-governmental organisation named Bauchi Sustainable Women Economic Empowerment and Peace Initiative (B-SWEEP). The organisation touches and stimulates the lives of women and children of the state, as well as other vulnerable groups, through economic empowerment, skills acquisition, education, agriculture, health and peace.
Hajiya
Hadiza Abubakar, a retired banker with 31 solid years of working experience, is
a woman of strong heart, one who is committed to the betterment of the
underprivileged members of society. She uses any given opportunity to promote
the living condition of women and advocates on issues that affect them.
Despite her busy schedule, she fielded questions
from the editors of Tozali on her achievements and on-going
projects in Bauchi State. The First Lady also goes down memory lane and relives
those great moments from school to work, and to life currently in the
Government House. The mother of five as well as grandmother tells us what she
does with her free time, her thoughts on fashion, family and relationships. It
is an open and frank conversation which reveals the inner workings of her rich
mind, especially her passionate desire to make a difference for women, children
and other vulnerable persons. Read on.
GOOD DAY, MA. CAN WE MEET YOU?
My name is Hadiza Mohammed Abubakar. I am an
indigene of Katsina State, but born and brought up in Kano. I started my
primary school education in Kano in 1963 and ended up with my First Leaving
School Certificate from Rafindadi Primary School in Katsina in 1970. After my
primary school, I gained admission into Government Girls Secondary School,
Kankia; I was there for two years for my Form 1 and 2. Thereafter, I
transferred to Government Girls College, Kano (Dala), where I did my secondary
school. I finished in 1974 and I was fortunate to gain admission into Ahmadu
Bello University, Zaria, in 1974. I had a B.A. Honours in Literature upon
graduation in 1978, and did my N.Y.S.C. in 1979.
Thereafter, I gained employment with the Nigeria
Television Authority (NTA) in 1979 where I worked for ten years. In 1990 I
joined the services of Central Bank of Nigeria as a manager, and my first place
of posting was Bauchi naturally, because I was based in Bauchi with my husband
at that time. I rose through the ranks from a Manager, Senior Manager,
Assistant Director, all in Bauchi branch, and I had the opportunity to serve as
a Branch Controller in acting capacity for nine months. In 2004, I was
transferred to CBN in Abuja headquarters where I worked with the Human Resources
Department and there I gained my promotion to the rank of a Deputy Director in
2011. I was posted to Branch Operations Department of the Central Bank and I
was promoted to the rank of the Director, Branch Operations Department in June
and the same year, I voluntarily retired from the services of Central Bank to
pursue other areas of my interest.
When I was with the CBN in 2006, I decided to go
back to school, so I went back to ABU Zaria and pursued an M.Sc in Public
Administration.
I am married to Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar and the
marriage has been blessed with five children and we have six grandchildren from
them.
The journey in 2015 and the victory by the grace of Allah was not an easy one. It was quite a challenging and strenuous endeavour. We had to do a lot to go out and campaign and get to convince the people about the manifesto, plans and intentions of the government for the people of Bauchi State. I personally did my own campaign with the women. I did a tour of all the 20 local governments of Bauchi where I went round and met different women groups to get them to buy into the campaign plans of my husband, and I must say that worked really well for us because one very interesting thing about each of the local governments I visited was that a lot of people were of the opinion that if the Governor-elect could allow his wife to come out, go out and meet with women, that for them was an indication that he was serious about his campaign plans and he was going to also work with and carry the women along. In several places, I was meant to understand that they were seeing that for the first time, which the wife of a governor-elect would come out and go to the grass roots to meet the women and discuss with them. It was quite hectic, very challenging, very strenuous and difficult but it was worth the while and it was rewarding.
WHAT HAVE BEEN YOUR EXPERIENCES /CHALLENGES SO FAR
AS THE FIRST LADY OF BAUCHI STATE?
My experiences as the wife of the Governor of Bauchi
State, like I mentioned earlier, I had the opportunity of interacting with a
lot of people, most especially women and youths, but particularly
women. When I was doing my campaigns, I always told the women that
the government of Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar would be gender-sensitive, would
carry along the women. It was like an agreement and understanding between my
husband and I that I was coming to support him, I was going out to get involved
with campaign with the sole aim of getting the women on board and for us to
also work towards uplifting the status of the women of Bauchi State when we get
the mandate.
So, after the victory and successful inauguration of
the government we set out to implement our campaign promises by also going out
again for the second time to meet the women to thank them and assure them that
we are going to do exactly what we promised we would do for them. For that
reason, I am working with the Ministry of Women Affairs to implement the
initiatives for women and children, the programmes of the government for women
and children, but I felt it was not going to be enough because the government
cannot do it alone. For that reason, I initiated an NGO which I called Bauchi
Sustainable Women Economic Empowerment and Peace Initiative.
The sole purpose of that NGO is to work towards
bringing about the desired change in uplifting the status of women in Bauchi
State and other vulnerable groups. When we talk about vulnerable groups, we are
talking about people living with disabilities; we are talking about orphans,
IDPs. I have interacted with all these people. The objectives of the NGO,
first, is to strengthen the productive capacity of women by providing them with
income generating skills, so that they can be useful to themselves.
From the interaction I have had with women, I
realised that one of the key challenges the women have is the issue of
empowerment, the issue of the need for them to have something to do to enable
them support themselves and also support their families. Secondly, is the issue
of maternal and child health. We are working with government to ensure the
women have better access to quality health care. And the third one is the issue
of education. The index for education is not very encouraging, especially among
our teenage girls. I place emphasis on not enrolment but retention. We have a
growing number of young girls who have gone to school, they have been enrolled
in the school and the major challenge now is to retain them in the school so
that they can complete their education. So we are targeting them and retaining
them to complete at least secondary school level.
Then participation of women in agriculture,
especially those in the rural areas. Finally, peace. We need to create enabling environment where all these laudable programmes and initiatives would thrive, especially coming from the north-east as a result of the insurgency. There is a need for us to preach peace to create awareness for peace so that we will have sustainable peace and co-existence in the state.
But ultimately, the sole goal of the NGO, that is
Bauchi State Sustainable Women Economic Empowerment and Peace Initiative, is to
establish an ultra-modern women centre that will have a clinic and a
skills acquisition centre that is in Bauchi State and in the rural areas. We
will go into integrated farming. We have started ruling out the plans with the
project but our major challenge is funding, so we have extended our hands of
friendship and collaboration to other NGOs, both local and
international NGOs, including the government, so that we will get the necessary
financial and technical support to enable us implement some of these projects.
We have worked with some NGOs and done skills acquisition training and the
total people trained were 160 (youths, both girls and boys) in about 7-8
skills, baking, tailoring, shoe making, that is leather work, and then aluminium
work. The programme was for eight weeks, that’s two months, and we have
concluded and are now going to do the graduation. And as part of the
graduation, we are going to teach them and give them supporting work tools and
some enabling materials that are essential to them so that they could continue
to engage in the various skills that they have learnt.
Under the ministry, we have also done training for
700 women across the 20 local governments: bead- making, poultry, goat rearing.
Through the programme also, we provided them with the necessary assistance so
that they could go and continue with what they have learnt. We are still in the
process of the discussion with an NGO we intend to renovate and equip as
programme free family health care centres and maternity centres with a view to
touching on our objective of supporting the government for women to have access
to better quality health care.
Lately for us, the government has an agenda it has
launched, which it calls Lafiya Garkuwar Jiki. And the second point on
that agenda is maternal and child health. The government has gone as far as
making medical services for children below the age of five free of charge so
that we can encourage women and children to avail themselves with the services.
We also interact with the IDPs; we have supported them, to give them a sense of
belonging. Although Bauchi does not have an IDP camp as such,
lately, what happened is that IDPs have been integrated into communities. They
live within communities; the only thing is that the supervising parastatal,
SEMA, is aware of their location; they know where they are, so they call them
out and support them in several ways with relief materials just to cushion the
effects of their hardship. We call them during Ramadan, Christmas, all festive
periods we remember to call them, we remember to support them with relief
materials so that they will know we remember them and we are aware of their
hardship.
Similarly, the disabled, people living with
disabilities, we interacted with them and we keep on engaging them and
supporting them with relief materials so that they will also have a sense of
belonging.
The government has supported us in some ways but most importantly the support the government gives us is in terms of human resources. Human resources in the sense that because we are just starting and we cannot afford to employ the number of staff that we think we need, we rely on the National Youth Service Corp which we can afford to pay and then the government has supported us by posting a staff to us whom we will now pay an allowance. Meanwhile, the staff will continue to draw his salary from the government. But so far, we have been working on our own to ensure we establish ourselves, create credibility. Now we call on people to support us financially. The training I was talking about was in collaboration with another NGO; they are supporting some, while 45 of them will be supported by my NGO. So, it’s a collaborative effort. Ultimately, what we are planning to do is to launch the NGO so that we will have a means of getting the attention and support of other organizations, but we felt we shouldn’t wait for people to come and support us until we have something solid on ground. So we are taking it gently. I don’t call this a pet project but an NGO.
IS IT AN NGO THAT YOU WANT TO DO ONLY WHILE IN
OFFICE? OR YOU WANT IT TO CONTINUE?
You will notice I keep talking about sustainability
and the name of the NGO is Bauchi Sustainable Women Empowerment and Peace
Initiative, and I have talked about all the areas we intend to touch with the
support of government and other NGOs and other international bodies and other
stakeholders. The goal is for us to establish an ultra-modern women
centre in Bauchi and a skills acquisition centre and a maternity clinic as a
legacy that we intend to leave behind. My prayer and my plan are for the
project to outlive the tenure of the administration. We want to do it in such a
way that even at the end of the tenure of this Administration, that NGO will be
able to continue to service humanity.
I am not supposed to assess myself, but by my own assessment, I am doing just fine. I have a lot of experiences behind me. When my children were young, I was working in a bank and I used to work from morning till evening, sometimes I would come from work at 10 p.m. So, I have already built that stamina and I have already established a balance between work and family.
When I started with this business of being the wife
of the governor, fortunately for me, my children are all grown up, my youngest
daughter is in her first year in the university, so majority of the time my
children are not even around me. So I have committed my time fully to the
service of the people of Bauchi State but most especially the women, children
and other vulnerable groups. What I do is I make sure I don’t have much
engagements for the weekends unless we have maybe a flag-off of an event, but
otherwise I succeeded in establishing working hours. I have an office, I go to
the office 11 a.m. and close at
4 p.m. unless
something comes to scuttle my plans. I aim at getting back home by 4
p.m. and that’s it for the day. There we do all our
courtesy calls, we do all our meetings, we do all our planning and it has never
affected my role as a wife and as a mother at home because the Governor has a
busier schedule than I have. When I come back home at 4
p.m., and he returns at 8, 9 or even 10
p.m. So for me, I have a balance and I derive joy in
what I do because I am very passionate about it, I am passionate to see to the
development of women, children and vulnerable groups, so I don’t find
it too stressful. It could be, but it’s also rewarding.
I have met people and I think other than the weight
of having to be seeing people on a daily basis, and probably because of our
attitude, for long people are used to coming to you for the purpose of
collecting money, other than that, we are trying gradually to change the
attitude and thinking of people, that we need to look and see beyond just
coming to get handouts at the possibilities of drive projects that will give
income so that they can better their lives.
Sincerely speaking, I don’t have any fashion style.
I just wear what I think I am comfortable with. But I like long gowns and bubus
because I feel comfortable and free in them and I leave other things for occasions.
I like veils because I cover up so I use veils and Lapayyas and I love bags.
But when it comes to jewelleries I wear them but I think what I like most are
rings.
HOW DO YOU SPEND YOUR 24 HOURS WHEN YOU ARE NOT
BUSY?
If I know I have a free day, what I do is I take my
time to even get out of bed because I would have put myself in the situation
when I get out of bed early from Monday to Friday, so if it is weekend, I take
my time; I don’t come out even for breakfast. Sometimes my staff will be
calling to say they haven’t seen me and they are calling to ask if am okay and
I tell them I am fine and just resting. Sometimes I just move from one angle to
the other in my room and I feel relaxed and easy doing that. Sometimes in the
evenings I just stretch myself on the bed and relax.
DO YOU TAKE TIME OUT TO VISIT FRIENDS?
I hardly ever get to visit except there is an
occasion. I don’t visit to just chat, I visit for the purpose of wedding, or
when someone is bereaved I go to pay condolence. When I am in Abuja, that has
been my style, not because I am the wife of the Governor but because I have
been a very busy person all my years. I did not establish the habit of going to
people’s house to go and chat, so I have very few houses that I visit even
before I became the wife of Bauchi State Governor. And now if there is a reason
for me to visit I do that once in a while. But what I do is that I tell my
people I want a quiet outing. I move out without convoy, no police,
nothing. I just move out, go my way, do my visit and I come back.
HOW OFTEN DO YOU SPEND QUALITY TIME WITH YOUR
FAMILY?
Like I said, all my children are
grown-ups, they are in school, some are working, three are married and they are
in Abuja with their spouses. So, spending quality time now will be myself and
my husband. He is a very busy person, like I said, but still we make out time.
If for any reason he comes back from work in the evening and there is no
meeting to attend, that is the time we sit down to talk about the day, what
transpired and what we intend to do the next day. We love watching comedies together
on TV. And from time to time, if there is the time to get away, we do so. We
have been to Yankari. If there is a function there, we stay back after the
function to spend the weekend so that we can unwind. And sometimes if I have an
event in Abuja after the event I stay back to spend a few days so that I can
rest.
So, what is happening now is, I have accepted that I
have an extended family so I share my time and my husband’s time with all the 7
million people of Bauchi State! So the little time we have, we try to see how
we can interact, talk over things that need to be done and, sometimes just to
while away time, we watch TV.
When I voluntarily retired from work, my plan was to dedicate my time to the service of humanity. I was part of an NGO that is involved in an orphanage, so I thought I was going to give my time in that orphanage which is in Kuje. So I promised them that now that I am free, I am going to give my time, and shortly after my retirement I enrolled in school; I wanted to learn the Qur’an more and also learn Arabic. I started doing that, but God had different plans for me. My husband went into politics and, with the victory, I had to move to Bauchi to support him.
So what I do now as the wife of the Governor has
just agreed with what is my passion and my hobby. I don’t do any sport, I used
to enjoy reading books, but I have decided I have read enough of books and I
wanted to read the Qur’an. So sometimes you find me reading the Qur’an or other
religious literature because I want to improve my knowledge. I couldn’t have
continued learning Arabic on my own, I had to leave that one for another time
but my passion which has become my hobby is giving service , taking care of the
weak and vulnerable and just transferred that passion/hobby and fused it with
my role as the wife of the Bauchi State Governor.
Sometimes my children would ask me to come back to
Abuja and rest. Even people working with me sometimes would say, “We have
worked enough, let’s go back to Abuja to rest. But because I am very passionate
about it, it doesn’t tire me out. I look forward to doing more and more and
more because I enjoy it. So for me, it is like a hobby, a
responsibility, and sometime I have prepared myself to do because I
see it as a God-given opportunity. I was ready to do it in Abuja but that
wasn’t to be and now I am in Bauchi I am still going to do the same thing,
probably at even a higher level.
There are so many groups I am involved with, like
rehabilitation centres, orphanage homes even before I became the wife of the
Governor in Bauchi when they have their issues, they know where to go. So
for me, it’s service to humanity. I always say God has been very kind to me. I
have a 31-year working career behind me, I have done well. I started as a
Level 8 officer in NTA, I left NTA as a Controller Administrator on Level 13,
joined Central Bank as a Manager, rose through the ranks and voluntarily
retired as a Director. I had reached the peak of my career. And my children
have all gone to school and they are successful in their own way,
some of them are working and those that are still in school will get
there. Four of them have graduated, out of the five.
When
I look at it from all angles, I say God has been kind. What is left now is for
me to give back to the society. I have been married for 36 years now. My
husband has been my friend, I have had a blissful relationship. I am happy and
contended. I couldn’t have asked for more.
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