by Anike Jacobs
We finally get to meet Mrs. Abiola Agbaje, wife of Jimi Agbaje, the Peoples Democratic Party gubernatorial flag bearer in Lagos.
In a recent interview with Sun Newspapers, Mrs Agbaje, who is a lawyer by profession, talked about growing up, marriage, society and women in politics, among others.
We now present her to you in 10 quotes.
1. She supports blind people – a passion that she picked up from her father who was on the council of the Nigerian Society of the Blind many years ago. She currently holds the role of Chairwoman of the Nigerian Society for the Blind.
2. There are different types of blindness “Some kind of blindness, like the ones we handle here, is not blindness from birth. It is blindness from adolescent or adulthood. It makes it worse. You have been an excited person, you have been doing everything yourself, you have been independent and all of a sudden you lose your sight; it is double trauma.”
3. Growing up “My growing up was idealic, very enjoyable. I grew up in a university environment. My father happened to be the first Nigerian librarian; He was the librarian for the University of Lagos. So, I grew up all my life in the university environment; We lived on the campus. I went to the University of Lagos staff school; we were the first set, before I proceeded to secondary school. It was a very sheltered upbringing because if you understand the environment of a university, lecturer’s children and families, we all grew up together watching the students and of course wanting one day to be able to go to the university like them.”
4. If she had the opportunity to change something in society, it would be “Our Values! We have lost our values. And those values are lost even from childhood. So, what we need to do is go back to the drawing board and retrieve those values we have lost and make sure that our children even from nursery imbibe them. As I find in Nigeria now, I always say it, wrong has become right. People do things now not even thinking about whether they are right or wrong, It is because everybody does it. It has become accepted and we are just going on like that. We need to change, that is the major problem we have. If I could say so, it still goes back to the family unit. If we don’t get the values in our family unit right, there is nothing we can pass on to the society.”
5. Her assessment of the level of women’s participation in politics “I don’t think any other government has given women as much participation as the Jonathan government. He has done a lot, but we are certainly not where we should be. There are so many areas where women are not at the level they should be. I believe we must always strive to get that gender equality as it will be so necessary to move the country forward.”
6. On what life has taught her : “It has taught me that the material things in life, though important, are not the most important. Friendship, love, companionship, helping others are much more important than acquiring and amassing material things.”
7. Her most memorable moments in life: The day I graduated from the university, the day I married the love of my life, the day I had my first child and my first promotion at work, these are all happy moments. And on the flipside, when you lose your loved one; the day my mother passed on and the day my father passed on. These are all sad moments considering the kind of life we had lived, how close we were, very painful. And, of course, no life is ever without challenges. You learn to deal with them as they come, and each challenge makes you stronger. It prepares you for the next challenge in life. All in all, my life is full of blessings and I thank God for it.
8. How much she supports her husband “A hundred and 10 per cent. He is a man I have known for almost 40 years. So, I believe I know his character, I know what he is capable of, know what his ability to achieve and deliver is. And knowing that I firmly believe that he is one of the people that this country needs to take us back on the path we think that we have trailed off. That is what I like about him.”
9. Her advice to women: We have to teach our children and men folk to perform their civic responsibilities without violence, with fairness, with the greater good in mind. We need to ensure that we ourselves are part of the political process in different ways. You must ensure that you register to vote irrespective of party affiliation because no matter what you want to do, in 2015 if you are not registered, you cannot help that particular person you want to come there. That is the first message I will send out. Our young people who have now reached voting age, we women; mothers, aunts, sisters, make sure you go and register. You explain to them what it means to have the vote, how important it is that they now have the vote and they must use it wisely. They must use it otherwise somebody else will use it on their behalf.
10. Being married to Jimi Agbaje: We are not 40 years in marriage. I met him 40 years ago, but we courted for quite a while, and we’ve been married for 33 years now.
