The Smart Nigerian Girl: Leadership Strategies for Sustainable Development in Nigeria

An early mission of British colonialism in Africa involved reinforcing rigid ideologies to redefine the African woman. Although the British had a West African presence dating as far back as the seventeenth century, Nigeria’s inauguration in the early 1900s was characterized by the rapid and violent imposition of European values and systems. For the Nigerian woman, this meant that her former participation in public spheres became restricted to the privacy of her home. Where they were once involved in decision-making and commerce, the arrival of the British colonial officials and their wives confined the Nigerian woman’s role to the domestic space. Girlhood and adolescent girls’ education, then, became a prime locus for indoctrination into British standards of middle-class femininity. Now, in the post-independence era, develop- ment specialists are asserting that the empowerment of women—and, as I will argue, restoration of their identities—is key to rebuilding the economic, social, and political sectors of any society. In this regard, contesting gender disparities in primary and secondary education has emerged as a development strategy. However, much attention is given solely to access to education, without consideration of how gendered education may constrain girls’ ability to participate in a capacity that is fulfilling to themselves and beneficial for their society. In Nigeria, where the effects of colonialism have created a void in effective leadership, the trajectory of the nation’s prosperity is contingent upon the re-education of girls into revolutionary understandings of their personal and social identities.No embargoAcademic Major: International Studie