BREAKING: Women Can Replicate Banking Success In Politics If Allowed – Olori Atuwatse III

The beautiful and classy Olori Ivie Atuwatse III is one of the young and upwardly mobile queens in Nigeria championing the frontiers of women empowerment and girl-child education. She is married to one of the most influential traditional rulers in the country, the 21st Olu of Warri, Ogiame Atuwatse III. In this interview on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief programme, the distinguished queen said women, as natural nurturers, have proven their mettle in banking and can replicate the same success in politics if supported.

Enjoy the excerpts…

I know you are super passionate about girl-child education. Why are you very passionate about girl-child education?

The girl-child or women in general are my first constituents. You can’t have a passion for anything if you don’t share their story. I know that women empowerment and girl-child education are smart things to do. Girls will eventually become women and we know that women empowerment is not just the right and just thing to do but the smart thing to do because when you empower a woman, you empower a community. So, as a development advocate, I’m very passionate about girl-child education.

His Majesty, Ogiame Atuwatse III and Olori Ivie Atuwatse III.

What are the barriers you see and what do you think the action has to be to break it as quickly as possible?

There are a lot of barriers to the female gender, from things like lack of quality education to period poverty, especially for the girl-child in our communities in the Warri Kingdom, to social expectations. From where most of the girl children come from, poverty is already a barrier but on top of that are social norms with girls more likely to be told to stay at home with their mothers and go to the market as opposed to going to school.

There’s also a huge barrier with early teenage pregnancy; as an advocate, I’m looking for how we can prevent that but also to encourage women or girls in our area to go back to school or to learn skills that would better them. So, I mean the barriers are quite enormous. What I’ve seen in the first line of engagement with women and girls in our community are some of these barriers, social norms out of school, education, period poverty and teenage pregnancies.

Let’s talk about the social and corporate elements. We’ve seen some success in the corporate spaces when you look at banking but in politics, the highest height a woman has ever attained is a Speaker of the House of Representatives. We know how she was kicked out eventually, but after that, it hasn’t been any form of a success story. We have never had a female governor elected. So, what are we missing out on not giving women at that level a seat on the table?

I know that naturally, the approach for women in leadership, or the approach to female leadership as I like to call it is very different. Women are natural nurturers and interestingly enough, I like to say there’s something that they say that women are emotional and emotions are seen as a bad thing especially when it comes to leadership. But truly I think women have the ability when not just be emotional but we can be emotionally intelligent; emotions are not a bad thing when you have the intelligence to understand what they’re saying and move in that direction.

I think women as natural nurturers have a different style of leadership which is necessary in the political leadership space, the economic leadership space, and corporate leadership space. By naturally being women, we’re able to have a better understanding of the broader scope of being multifaceted. In that aspect, by our failure to engage women leaders, we’re missing out on our ability to build better. We’ve seen it across the corporate status mostly when banks want to build up, they bring in women into their positions of leadership so that they can actually build. Women are natural builders, nurturers and so I think we’re missing that.

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Economically, I know that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says that Nigeria alone will increase her GDP by 133% if we’re able to close that gender gap. So, it’s a smart thing to do. We have to ensure that women in leadership are put in elected positions of power. I say this to anyone who cares to listen: it’s not just about us electing the women, the women have to come up, and women have to allow each other to push this agenda. Women must also push the agenda of getting more women in these positions of political power.

We know your husband as a man of steeze. We saw him on the scooter in a viral video. He’s very stylish, he’s very modern and upwardly mobile in his outlook but tell us, despite all of these, how easy or difficult if you will has it been being the wife of a king?

We have a great relationship, I always say that he’s first my husband before he’s my king and so we deal very intimately with each other. We’re friends and we’re partners, so I don’t know if I can say that it’s been hard. It’s not been hard thankfully; we’ve been able to navigate quite easily because our communication is brilliant, we’ve been able to navigate the complexities of the throne and this new position, thankfully. I think just communication and love and intimacy.

That’s beautiful to hear, I know a lot of people would also love to see you maybe on a scooter or something similar.

I have no balance, so I can’t help you there, I can’t even ride a bicycle.

So, to girls out there who probably see you every day and they’re like: ‘Can I be like her?’ What would want to tell them?

I think that would be: ‘Don’t be afraid to own your space, to own your voice.’ It’s still very humbling and I say it with all humility, it’s still very humbling to think or to even be perceived as somebody to look up to, a role model and I take it with a huge responsibility. I don’t take it lightly to know that in the space that I’m in, there are people and young girls who are looking up to me, I don’t take that very lightly but if there’s one thing that I have to say to them, it would be to not be afraid to own who they are. I think as girls, as women, especially very early on, we unfortunately or fortunately have people write our scripts for us.

As girls you’re told don’t do this, you’re going to be somebody’s wife, don’t shine too much, you’re going to be looked at as too strong, you’ll be looked at as too outspoken. Smile and don’t ruffle too many feathers because you don’t want to be a certain way and before you know it, internal biases start coming up and fear takes over. I tell this to my daughter and I would say to all girls: Don’t be afraid to be who you are, appreciate and love yourself for who you are with all your mistakes. You don’t have to get it right, just know that eventually, somehow, as long as you stay true to who you are, to your authentic self, the lines will fall in pleasant places and you will become who you are destined to be. Stay true to yourself I think that is what I would say.