In respect of the International Women's Day celebration today, we are honoring these women who have taken it
upon themselves to break the bias in every way. They are trailblazers and a big
inspiration to so many other women.
In the past years, they've stood and
represented the Nigerian feminine culture impressively, showing that being a
black female does not stop one from excelling in the outside world.
Chimamanda Ngozi-Adichie
She is a Nigerian writer who has works in novels, short stories, fiction and nonfiction.
Chimamanda is a native of Enugu
state in Nigeria, and the fifth child in a family of seven.
She studied medicine and pharmacy at
the University of Nigeria for a year then moved to the United States to study
Communications and Political science at Drexel University, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.
Adichie is known for her views on
religion, race, sexuality and gender issues. Her works have received prominent
recognition over the world being adapted into movies and recommended as
literary texts. Being a trailblazer, Chimamanda Ngozi-Adichie has received the
following awards amongst others;
● Honorary degrees as the doctor of
Humane letters, Switzerland.
● An honorary degree from Yale
University
● Commonwealth writers prize for
the best first book
● Orange broadband prize
● Future Awards Nigeria for the
Young person of the year
Other Achievements include being
listed among Time Magazine's 100 most influential people, The New Yorker's 20
under 40 and she was the class day speaker for Harvard University in 2018.
She is a strong feminist and
advocate for women's rights.
Ire Aderinokun
She is Nigeria's first female Google
developer Expert.
Ire hails from Ogun State Nigeria
and was born into a family of three.
She has a bachelor's degree in
experimental psychology from the University of Bristol and a masters degree in
law from the same university.
Ire Aderinokun built her first
website by the age of 13 and currently owns a blog called bitsofcode where she
breaks down complex codes for other developers.
She is a self-taught frontend
developer and user interface designer who specializes in core front-end
technologies like HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Ire currently runs a scholarship
program that sponsors Nigerian women to take a Udacity Nano degree course in
any technology field of their choice.
Ire Aderinokun is the CO-Founder,
COO and the Vp engineering of buy coins exchange, a cryptocurrency platform in
Africa.
She is a strong feminist and
advocate for women's rights.
Yvonne Orji
She is a Nigerian-American actress
that is popularly known for her role in the award-winning series, Insecure.
Yvonne was born in Port Harcourt,
rivers state, Nigeria but grew up in the United states. She attended high
school in the small town of Pennsylvania, earned a BA in liberal arts from
George Washington University and a masters degree in public health from the
same university.
After graduation, she moved to New
York to pursue a career in Comedy. In 2015, she landed her first major acting
role starring as Molly, Issa's best friend in the series Insecure.
Yvonne Orji is a devout Christian
and a big advocate for sex until marriage.
She was also nominated for the
Primetime Emmy awards and three NAACP awards.
She is also the author of the book;
Bamboozled by Jesus.
Tiwa Savage
The queen of afrobeats, as she is
popularly known.
Tiwa Savage is a British-Nigerian singer,
songwriter and actress. She was born in Lagos State and relocated by the age of
11 to London for her secondary education. At the age of 16, she started singing
back up vocals for artistes like George Michael and Mary J. Blige. After
participating in the UK edition of X Factor and graduating from Berklee College
of music, she signed a publishing deal with Sony records.
In 2012, savage moved back to
Nigeria after being inspired by the Nigerian music industry.
She sings Rnb, Afrobeats, hip-hop,
and soul. Since her break into the Nigerian music industry, she has dropped
hits back to back from her first studio album Once upon a time released in 2013
to her Somebody's Son topping charts.
In 2014, she became the first female
artiste to be nominated for the BET Awards and in the same year, she won the
Chanel O music awards for best female category. In 2018, she became the first
woman to win the best African act award at MTV Europe music awards.
In 2019, she exited Mavins record
and announced her record deal with Universal Music group.
Tiwa Savage is a philanthropist and
has been involved in youth empowerment projects, breast cancer screening
projects and has raised funds to build more schools in Nigeria.
Deola Sagoe
This woman here is a fashion
designer that hails from Ondo State, Nigeria. She studied at the University of
Lagos and University of Miami, graduating with a Masters in Finance and
Management.
Deola Sagoe began designing in 1989
and her works have gained recognition all over the world. She has appeared
constantly in fashion exhibitions like the Cape Town fashion week, Lagos
fashion week and new York fashion week.
She won the Africa Designs and Mnet
Anglo Gold African designs Awards. She has also bagged a few awards at home;
● Best costume
designer at the 2015 Africa Magic viewers choice award
● Achievements in
costume design at the 11th Africa movie academy awards.
These are not all the women who have
broken bounds in Nigeria, in fact every woman reading this right now is great
with potentials to rise up as high as they can.
The theme for today's IWD is
#Breakthebias. How are you breaking the bias around you, how are you standing
up for yourself. Take some notes from these women listed above, and take the
step today. I am personally inspired, and geared to want to test my potentials
and ready to stand up to challenge bias.