She has a penchant for engaging in a profession and vocation considered to be almost the exclusive preserve of the menfolk and in these she has acquitted herself well, even getting to the zenith of such male chauvinistic ventures.
Such is the enviable world of Hon. Janet Adeyemi, who is an engineer by profession and a former member of the Federal House of Representatives. This high-flyer is the current President of Women in Mining, Nigeria, and founder of Succour for Battered Lives, popularly known as SUBATEL, a charity organisation caring for victims of disasters.
Adeyemi, a registered member of the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, Association of Consulting Engineers in Nigeria and a Fellow of the Nigeria Mining and Geosciences Society, holds a chain of degrees in Geology and Engineering, respectively.
As a lawmaker, delectable Adeyemi served in various capacities in the House of Representatives while representing the people of Ile Oluji/Oke-Igbo Federal Constituency, from 1999 to 2003. She was the Chairman of the House Committee on Irrigation, Flood and Erosion Control and Chairman of the Sub-Committee for Solid Minerals and Water Resources.
She further made her impact felt while in the House by sponsoring 15 bills, which were eventually enacted into law.
I have never been intimidated in my life by men. I have never seen the profession as male-dominated. I believe the attitude is what really matters. When men see seriousness, hard work and commitment in you, they respect you
After her tenure in the country’s lower legislative chamber, ex-president Obasanjo found her worthy and appointed her Senior Special Assistant on National Assembly Matters. She also later served as an Executive Board Member of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission.
But how has this Amazon been coping in the male-dominated Engineering profession and politics? How comfortable is she rubbing shoulders with men?
Adeyemi says, “Honestly, I have never been intimidated in my life by men. I have never seen the profession as male-dominated. I believe the attitude is what really matters. When men see seriousness, hard work and commitment in you, they respect you. But yes, there is a rider to it; the rider is not because they want to discriminate against you. No, I think the rider is just because of the way women are profiled. Let me just give you an example, I am just digressing so that you can understand where I am coming from.
“The state I come from (Ondo State), if you say you were getting married to an ijebu man in those days, people would shout and kick against it as if all the people from Ijebu are bad. As if the same things they do in Ijebu land, they don’t do them in Ondo State. That is what we call profiling. But the only thing is that it is the individual’s attitude to life that matters.
“I find myself in a profession, where women are profiled and that was what made me take up what is called ‘Women In Mining, not because I want to fight those men, but because I want to change the psyche, the thinking of what has been programmed into our lives or how women have been profiled as the weak gender that cannot do difficult jobs. Now, we find women flying big planes, women working in the attics. Let women follow what they want to do. Don’t dictate to them, don’t decide for them that they cannot do any particular job.”
Of course, as a woman, Adeyemi admits encountering some challenges, just like her male counterparts in her profession and politics.
In that regard she says, “In my professional career, I cannot say this is a particular episode of challenge I have faced. But I find myself in thrust of politics, where I have to stand shoulder to shoulder with men, and if I tell you I have not got into murky waters, it is a lie because you find out that, at a point in time, I was asked to go back to my husband’s state to contest election. Why? Because some people felt intimidated and the only way they felt they could eliminate me was to now bring in marital status, which is a game for weak men.
“I remember a particular episode where I was heavily pregnant, and that was my first pregnancy, and we had to go on a site visit to the Owena Dam, which was to be constructed then, and I had to go with one of the senior engineers then in my office. You know what a pregnant woman will go through while trekking from one distance to another, trying to ruminate where we wanted to build the dam. I was extremely tired and I had to keep on going. Then, again, I wanted to avoid this stereotype that this is why we don’t want women on this job, and I tell you, it was not an easy experience. Yes, I managed to walk all the site areas. I pulled through because I had sympathetic colleagues, but then, it was a tough one for me.”
The former lawmaker, however, contends that her ability to balance her marriage with her professional career and politics, coupled with the fact that she got married to a husband who has remained her “friend,” has been responsible for the successes she has recorded in life and her family life.
Adeyemi says, “He is extremely quiet, but very supportive, even when I’m in politics. When I’m running for a particular office, he is there praying, fasting. He was the one disbursing funds, where we needed to disburse funds. He was holding underground meetings with people. At times, he would be at the party secretariat to make sure things were in order for me.
“I honour him because he has always been my pillar of support. When you go to the National Assembly today, you’ll see that I don’t use a compound name. Of course, we are both Engineer Adeyemi. He is Engineer Ayo Adeyemi and I am Engineer (Mrs.) Janet Adeyemi. That’s the name I bore officially throughout while in the National Assembly, because he gave me everything and I am so grateful for that. So, why won’t I respect him? Another thing is that when you don’t take your spouse for granted, of course, the support will willingly come and the kids, too, see it and marvel at our relationship.”
Assessing the mining sector in Nigeria, she notes, “It is still in a very rudimentary form; the problem is that we neglected mining for so long because we find a quick win in oil and we went into oil business. Mining takes a longer gestation before it starts yielding any revenue, where you will have to do a lot. I am not talking about the artisan miners, who dig out and carry the resources and take them away; they even build and develop a mine site.
“To open up a mine site, the infrastructure that goes into it must be in place – the laboratory, the work men, the technicality, the skill and all other things. It involves a lot, but we had a government during the former President Olusegun Obasanjo regime, which started reforms; and consistently, every government that comes, including President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, has been extremely committed to it and they have been doing so much to make sure that a lot of things are on ground because the perception index for Nigeria before was extremely low. Nobody even wanted to come to Nigeria and invest before, but strangely enough, now the perception index has been improved.
She enjoins the young people to spend their time on productive ventures and refrain from engaging in “irrelevant things.”
