Men Have Failed Us, Let's Try Women

WORRIED by the inability of most women to know their socio-economic and political right in the society, an Onitsha based female lawyer and a silent activist, Barrister (Mrs.) Emilia Enemuoh has advised the women to wake up to the challenges since the men have failed this great country, Nigeria. She barred her mind to PHYL OKOSE in her chambers in Onitsha saying it is high time women took over leadership in all spheres of life. Excerpts:

On her vision to help achieve the course of women, she said, "as a lawyer with 15 years in Practice, I have focus on defending the right of women and children, going to the less privileged to be voice of the poor. At least to get to them and say, this is Your right from your left and if I can change their lives no matter how small, that will go a long way to improve their lives. We have been doing that in this office and at times we offer free legal services to women, some have problems with their husbands, some have problems going to school, some have problems with their children, they don't know their right from left. 
We call them and tell them this is what we do, not just fighting it out with the man but take it easy gradually,  first of all get yourself back to school, then if you are able to reschedule yourself, you become somebody and no man comes into the house and sees a woman of substance and overlook the woman. It listed to you your attitude, your advice and when you do that there will be less cases of school drop-outs and all that. That you got married earlier is not an excuse.
  On whether she floats an NGO foundation which she will stand as a platform to run she said, "I  have one, 'Help The Helpless Foundation', we give lectures to traders, like laity council Onitsha, we go to churches, talk to them, CWO and all these women organizations, during August meeting we visit them. We deliver lecture on women and their right, we deliver lecture at conferences on good governance and all that. At the end of the lecture you will see people interested saying, 'I don't even know we  have a head office, International Federation of Women Lawyers which I am a member.  
We have it in Awka, International Federation of Women Lawyers is an arm of women lawyers, there you get free of charge legal attention and all that. We attend International conferences, International Bar association, I am a member. We are members of Women Interest Group, in this group we are talking about women, everything women. For instance, in America there is an election, they say Mrs. Clinton would not get there, why wouldn't she get there, if she has all the onions why wouldn't she get there, but at the end of the day Obama surpassed her, so we now know that there is a  reason why she didnt get there." 
Compared with Nigerian politics, she regretted that the men have failed as  they could not live up to expectation. 
"In Nigeria men have failed us. Men have been president, we don't have a woman as president, we don't have a woman as governor, never, except that Virgy Etiaba tried after Peter Obi's impeachment, and they have been failing us again, there has been abject poverty. We want to try women. Let the women try, can't a woman be governor, can't a woman be  president like in Liberia where Ellen Johnson Sirlif is? That was a country that was ravaged by war, and the woman is out there trying to put together what the men have disappointedly failed to do. Here in Nigeria, can't we do it? But how do you do it? Do you do it in the kitchen, do you stay in the market place and do it?
 Go to school, if you are in school you are exposed, you expose your children, if your husband doesn't know, you teach him from this you hand over something substantial to women." 
Barrister Mrs. Emilia who has been honoured with so many accolades with the latest being from University of Nigeria Nsukka Alumni Onitsha branch stated that the awards were through hard works for the betterment of the society.
"When we were doing all these we didn't know that somebody out there was watching.   So when they come we say no, please go to Senior Advocates, and they will say 'but it is you that we want and I say okay', how many women are you given, and they say only you and I say you mean there are no women entrepreneurs, we have to be many and they laugh, they say we are doing it on a micro level, we are trying to reorganize  the alumni here in Onitsha.  
We are talking on commission on the practice of women, we are talkng about women all through, this one is not all about lawyers, it is for women generally if you know you are interested in women, we have YWCA, we have International Federation of Women Lawyers, we have different NGO's committees of NGO's and that one is based in New York, UN office, we were there last two years, we were there this year, talking about women, so from there we get fliers, we get books we distribute, they teach about HIV/AIDS and you can see women, their husbands can contact HIV out there, come into the bedroom and spread it to the women, he would not like to tell the woman, you women can spread it to the children, but if we don't know our right to know how to go about it, you watch it, when the time begins to change you watch the problem, so that when the storm comes it doesn't eat the man, it  eats you and the children.
 These are the things we are talking about in the commission of practice of women, what they do to women. at times they say, you go on maternity leave no pay. Women in Spain, sometime they were no longer going to have children, now we go to work January to December, when will you go and have the children? About a time that population started diminishing to two percent, (2%) and they started begging women to have children, some will have one and say no way, they start taking pills. So assuming here in Nigeria we come here and women say we are not going to rear children, what happens? Our generation will just be raped like that. So this is just the thing we are fighting, give women a chance, let women be Commissioner for Justice, Attorney General, let the women be able to aspire to any lenght they wish.
God knows this world cannot be in existence without women, that is why He created Eve. When He created Adam, He said choose  among the animals who could be your helper, he couldn't choose the elephant,  nor snake nor the python or hippopotamus, he couldn't and God said ok, this man is lonely and He created woman out of his rib and what did he say, 'the bone of my bone the rib of my ribs', she was so beautiful for him to resist and at the end of the day they say women are the cause of the trouble when Eve gave him the fruit, why didn't he say no, or why didn't he say it is my wife who gave me and say to God, I am sorry? God would have forgiven him and we would have been in paradise. 
So anything negative they shift it to the women but it is not true, we are not, we are not object of destruction, but God brought us here to help mankind".
Barrister Enemuoh, a two- time executive member of Onitsha Branch of Nigeria Bar Association, added further that the  women have outsmarted the men even in politics and deserved to be accorded respect. She cited the former NAFDAC Director General Prof. Dora Akunyili, Obby Ezekwesili, Ndi Okereke Onyiuke of the stock exchange and Okonjo Iweala as women performers in the Nigerian socio-economic and political spheres to the glory of women.
  "So coming to talk about women in politics, we have shown that we are not only meant for the kitchen but to still invest. We can also be heard, if you use your knowledge and wisdom with which we carry the baby especially for nine months and then we nurse them, weaned them and  you start taking them to school, if you combine all of them, it will exceed those of the men and that is what these women have been doing".  
The woman- lawyer who said that reading is her hobby paid glowing tribute to her mentor in legal practice saying, "G. E. Esq. of the blessed memory took me like his daughter  and he gave me all the exposure of this world and all the counselling. Apart from God,  he is the one to take all the glory for my exposure, after that he retained me and I stayed for five years with him as a pupil counsel, learning all that I am suppose to learn.