Nenadi Usman: Nigerian Women Are Becoming STEM Superstars

In the following article, Nenadi Usman discusses the influx of Nigerian women into STEM-related industries. Nenadi Usman is Nigeria’s former Finance Minister and Senator of the South Kaduna District.

Women are actively demonstrating their facility in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and Nigeria is reaping the benefits.

For decades, there has been a quiet, misogynistic undercurrent travelling beneath tech fields. Not only are women inherently uninterested in science and technology, it was believed, they lacked the fundamental mental discipline necessary to succeed. They are more emotional than men; they become distracted by family obligations. They’re more comfortable relating to people, not building things. They cannot cope with stress.

While the above stereotypes still linger in public consciousness, the burgeoning female presence in STEM-related industries simply cannot be ignored. The simple fact is: Women are changing Nigeria’s industrial landscape.

• Funke Opeke Without a doubt, the most respected and renowned contributor to Nigeria’s telecom revolution. Formerly Executive Director of the Wholesale Division at Verizon Communications, she is the founder of Main Street Technologies, the telecom service provider that delivered online communications to the Nigerian business community.



• Nkem Okocha. A marketing, banking, and financial professional, whose startup, Mamamoni, has offered thousands of impoverished women vocational training and micro-loans, effectively helping to lift a significant number of women out of poverty.



• Bilikiss Adebiyi-Abiola. A software engineer for IBM who developed programs and social networking software for Fortune 500 companies, Adebiyi-Abiola founded the waste and recycling organization WeCyclers, which developed a business structure that incentivizes low-income communities to recycle, helping to reduce waste.

In Nigeria, misogyny is certainly a national problem. Violence against women, including rape, domestic violence, and sexual exploitation, is alarmingly common, and generally not viewed with the outrage such atrocities merit. However, in the tech industries, women are making tremendous strides. While women were actively prohibited from entering into STEM-related industries only 10 years ago, today women are participating in the tech market in greater numbers than in the U.S. or U.K., and even taking on leadership roles.

Only the most willfully blind amongst us will argue that there are no differences between men and women. However, only the most aggressively ignorant will argue that women are not of tremendous value to STEM fields. The incorporation of diverse perspectives into any industry only leads to further advancement. While there may be some merit to the argument that women are biologically more likely to be attracted to fields that are focused upon helping people than men are, it can also be concluded that this predisposition (if it truly exists) can help channel any scientific and technological discoveries into useful and innovative applications.

While it is with tremendous pride that I see these strong women helping to transform Nigeria into an international economic force, I will be doubly proud when young Nigerian girls will be able to avail themselves of home-grown educational and social resources, compete on a global scale, and win.

Nenadi Usman is co-founder of the non-government organization “Education and Empowerment Centre for Women”.