Engineer Ramatu Abarshi is a humanitarian activist and lecturer at Kaduna Polytechnic. She has executed many projects, among them women empowerment programmes in Kaduna State; VVF patients awareness programme in Kano, and skill acquisition for youth. She is the chairperson of Barkindo Rahama Initiative (BRAIN), an NGO executing skill acquisition programmes for women, youths and the physically challenged. In this interview, she shares her travails growing up, her kidnapping and other sundry issues.
At a time girls were not allowed to go to school, you broke the barrier. How did you do it; even becoming an engineer, a profession is generally seen as strictly for males?
Choosing engineering as my career, I will prefer to describe it as God’s design, self-determination and strong passion for science subjects right from my childhood.
My passion played a major role in giving me the opportunity and privilege to read engineering, mainly because in most parts of the North, our parents felt science and becoming an engineering practitioner were solely for the male folk. I do not believe it should be that way, though.
So, in my own case, it was growing up in a community where almost everybody did not have the opportunity to go to school, living the typical herder’s life where only the rearing of animals and helping our parents with home chores seemed to be the major role of a girl child, who after a few years will be married off.
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What was your parent’s reaction when you told them you wanted to study engineering?
Even before I started primary school, my father made it clear that he did not want his female children to go to school, even though I had older brothers who were sent to traditional Islamic schools. The general opinion was that acquiring knowledge was for the male child, so the issue of discussing going to school with my parents was out of the question.
I did not have the opportunity and the chance was not there to discuss the issue with my parents, let alone tell them I wanted to study engineering after my secondary school. It was something I nursed in my heart, although my mother was supporting me secretly – without the knowledge of my father and other siblings – to go to school.
Becoming an engineer was a long-concealed passion that I kept on pursuing.
So how were you eventually able to dare your father’s decision and go to school?
Actually, it was not easy because I did not even have the privilege to discuss the matter with him. I was brought up in a modest household where parents and elders were respected. Whatever the father said was final, and even our mothers did not have the privilege to contribute to most of the decisions taken about anything in the family.
So, you can imagine me a child, the 11th from my mother and about the 20th from my father, bringing up the discussion with my father.
I was able to go through primary school by hiding from my father with my mother’s help. My father had a large family, he had four wives, so some days he will be in the village where my mother is, and other days he will be with the other wives who are in other locations, so he will not know exactly what I am doing.
Once he was around, I must make sure he did not see me in my school uniform. Eventually, after about two years of my going to school, it became very clear that I was going to school, and I did not find it easy with him at all.
At the beginning, my mother did not openly support me, but she wished I could go to school, so when it was clear I was going to school, it was a big challenge for her with my father.
It was a challenging period, but I thank God for his mercy. I thank God for my mother’s support and encouragement, and I thank God for the very friendly community.
The community members saw us as their own even though we were from a different ethnic group and belonged to a different faith. All the same, they saw us, the Fulani children who managed to go to school from that community, as their own, and we saw them as our parents because they did not show discrimination.
Those factors motivated me and helped me continue attending school.
Which community was that?
I went to school at LSD Riyom in Plateau State, but actually, my mother was brought up in Kagoro in Southern Kaduna by the then Chief of Kagoro, the late Gwamna Awan. He was the one who took care of my mother; she was brought up around his family. They supported her and treated her as their own because her father died when she was small.
It was after we grew up that she told us the story because we had thought we were from that community.
My father was born in Sanga, also in southern Kaduna. Back then, it was not even a local government. His grandparents nicknamed him, sang after Sanga, and that is our family surname to date.
You can see how I belong to so many places; I see all the places as my home and my people, especially due to the relationship we enjoyed at that time.
How would you describe your relationship with your father, having finished school against his wish?
Actually, when I completed secondary school, it was also another battle, not only with my father but also with my elder male siblings, because they did not see any reason for me to continue school. Again, through the will of God and my strong faith, I was able to go for my tertiary education at the Plateau State Polytechnic, where I was given admission to study electrical engineering.
My mother supported me; she stood by me, and also, my late in-law, Alhaji I. B. Mohammed, supported me, and that enabled me to surmount the numerous challenges. My father, now had no option but to support me.
Do you see young girls, especially the Fulani girls of today, following in your footsteps to get educated even as there are more opportunities for them now compared to your days?
God has made things easier for us; easier in the sense that our parents, especially those of us in the pastoralist community, now see reasons why girls should go to school, but that is not to say that the girl-child is not facing the challenges of not being allowed to go to school but prepped on getting married.
But the situation is a bit better, and we have more people who are educated within the pastoralist communities, which is serving as a motivator and encouragement to parents to allow their children to go to school.
Yes, the challenges are less now because there is more awareness; our parents are more enlightened than before, and I think they have mingled more with other communities and seen the advantages of a child given the privilege to go to school in other communities where they become successful in life.
There is still a lot that needs to be done to support pastoralist children going to school.
Because of our pattern of life, which dedicates our whole lives to our animals, there needs to be a special education system that is flexible with the lifestyle of pastoralist children. It should allow us to take care of our cattle and also go to school.
There is also the need for our children to have skills, not just to go to school, as having skills is another important field that will help liberate our children from the lifestyle of not going to school.
The government and our elite should do something by establishing more nomadic schools, even though I know that the federal government has done a lot by creating a commission.
The commission is doing its best, but to what extent have our elite contributed to enhancing, improving and making the nomadic schools better; how qualitative are the teachers that are employed? What special incentive is there to encourage the teachers to stay in the schools where they are posted? This is necessary to ensure that our children have a sound education.
A year ago, you, your daughter and your driver were abducted in the community you grew up in; would you like to share your experience?
Many times, I have declined to comment on my experience while in captivity, but this is a special period because the 8th of March is an important day for every woman everywhere, and because of that, I will want to share my experience.
As I told you, I have a passion for humanitarian activities and community-based outreach programmes.
To satisfy my passion, last year, during the holy month of Ramadan precisely, I and a few others went to a village in Lere local government near Mariri called Tilde Karjiji, where I wanted to share something very little for orphans.
I was satisfied that God gave me the opportunity to see them, but unfortunately, on our way back we were attacked, we were kidnapped and we stayed for weeks with our abductors in the bush. But through faith, through God-answered prayers, and through every faith, including those that did not know me, I believe they prayed for us and God Almighty answered.
It was not a good experience, and I would just want to say that it is my sincere prayer to Almighty God to protect our communities, to protect our youth, especially those who are into this ungodly act, to be guided by God so that they can repent and together, we can build and make our country a better place for everyone.
As we pray for ourselves, we should also pray for those who are involved in criminality. For me, while I was in captivity, I was praying for myself, praying for my daughter, praying for Ibrahim the driver, praying for those that I met in captivity that I didn’t even know, and I was also praying for my abductors that may God help them repent and let them see the light in repentance and stop those ungodly acts.
I don’t want to say much because I get emotional whenever I remember or speak about it but I thank God that we survived.
Has your experience deterred you from your humanitarian work or has it further pushed you to do more?
Not at all, if anything, it has motivated me and it will never deter me. One of my brothers, Dr Salim, called me and asked if I will ever go back to my humanitarian work, especially in village communities, and I told him I will, I also told him that I forgave the people that kidnapped me.
While in captivity, what I saw in the bush has motivated me to do more and to encourage other organisations to join hands and do more so that many more people can be reached especially the youth to stop these dastardly acts and to build better communities.
But have you gone back to the area since the incident?
No, I have not gone back physically, but I have sent about 200 forms for skills acquisition to Sanga Local Government and Ladduga community all in Southern Kaduna to give youth the opportunity to indicate the skills they want to train on so that they can attain self-sufficiency and become employers of labour.
So even though I have not gone physically, I have programmes that will soon commence. I am not discouraged, I am planning and working and by the grace of God, I will achieve my set goals.
As you moved ahead in your career, how were you able to balance being a wife and a mother with your humanitarian activities?
You know when you have passion for something and when you are determined, you become a good manager of your time for a married person, what I did was to gain the confidence and trust of my husband. I made him my partner in progress.
I started raising a family when I had only a National Diploma (ND), so taking care of my husband, raising a family and teaching in school were activities that I carried out simultaneously.
What a woman needs to do is build confidence between her and her husband and the people around him to ensure that they understand each other and that whatever you are doing, you are very transparent. This is how I am able to achieve my goals.
I have a passion for teaching, and one of the best moments in my life is when I am interacting with my students and when I have the privilege of discussing with the communities how to sustain peaceful coexistence.
What words of encouragement do you have for women and youth?
I will call on women to unite and stop depending on our husbands; let us work and improve our economic status, let us try to develop and upscale our skills so that we will be able to compete favourably in all aspects of life.
I also want to call on our youth to desist from being used to perpetrate violence and instead focus on building their future and developing our communities.
What would you want to be remembered for?
I would like to be remembered as a humanitarian advocate.
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