BY CHISOM AGUDOSI

[Abuja, Nigeria—The African] In commemoration of Mother’s Day, a group of Nigerian single mothers yesterday held a virtual meeting to encourage one another in recognition of what the event’s initiator, Nigerian writer Amara Chidinma Ezediniru, called “the rough path of being a single mum in a country like Nigeria.”

Ezediniru, the single mother of two teenagers, explained to The African the inspiration behind the terms “Wo-Man Up.”

“The term ‘man-up’ is used to encourage people to be strong in the face of adversity. Being a woman, I figured that it could also be ‘woman-up.”” She added: “After all, there is man in a woman.”

Ezediniru hastens to say that it is not a matter of competing with men. “Everyone should exist and function optimally in their space,” she says, but she feels strongly that women who took up the responsibility of nurturing and providing alone for the children they birthed with a man should be patted on the back. If it’s hard enough to raise a child when both parents are present, it’s much harder when that task falls on only one parent, especially in Nigeria, a country with the patriarchal foundation that rules in most African cultures, Ezediniru notes. She points out the lack of government assistance to single parents, noting that men who abandon their children are not held liable:

“Typically, the man believes that once a child came through his sperm, the child remains his and would return no matter the efforts the woman puts in raising her. Generally, women are grossly disrespected, they are to be seen and not heard.”

At the event, women shared their thoughts and resolved to remain kind towards each other. They dispersed with a strong conviction to be a pillar and lift each other instead of tearing each other apart on account of men. There were chants of woman-up in the air.

Though a virtual meeting due to the pandemic, it never felt like one. Women made new friends, listened to different voices, and shared their victory stories.

For the attendees who were unmarried women, it was a reinvigorating time. Hearing from others, they were encouraged that they were not alone in their struggles. For the rest, married mothers and single ladies, it was an eye-opening event. They listened to the challenges and triumphs as told by the women doing the double honours of father and mother in the lives of their children. They saw reasons to be more sensitive, as being an unmarried mother is not always out of choice. Some escaped death from an abusive marriage, some lost their partners to the cold hands of death. A few were abandoned by the man who got them pregnant; some had their families reject them because they were not from the same social and ethnic class, while some made a deliberate choice to have children without being married. Whatever the case was, Ezediniru encouraged everyone to ‘woman up!’

By ‘woman-up’, everyone was going to keep her head high regardless of what the society thinks. Each is to remain courageous in the face of adversity and keep the smiles on. She encouraged all present to do a competence inventory and what she called “friend audit.”

With a competence inventory, each person can see clearly the gifts the universe has bestowed on her and can take advantage of those that add value to her environment. “There are all sorts of rewards attached to service apart from being fulfilled,” Ezediniru, tells The African. She adds:

“With a friend audit, each person will decipher between mutually-beneficial relationships and parasitic ones and make a choice as how to invest the finite resources of emotions and time, given that relationships costs a lot.”

In ending, the Nigerian writer who is credited with three books wished real men a happy father’s day, and said she hopes to make the event a recurring one.