It is no longer news that the American University of Nigeria (AUN) awarded scholarships to some rescued Chibok schoolgirls abducted nine years ago. To be reintegrated into the larger society, psychosocial support has been identified as a key instrument towards making this realisable. AUN has held the forte with outstanding results through numerous programmes to make the girls, now women, self-reliant in an unstable economy devoid of all the trauma they have been through. Kuni Tyessi spoke with the AUN president, Dr. Dewayne Frazier, who assumed office less than three months ago. Excerpt:
Do you have an update on the Chibok girls?
So you know, through the Chibok programme, I’ve learned a lot in the last one month or so. I’m very thankful to the Ministry of Women Affairs for working with us. They’ve been a great partner. I want to see more opportunities with the new administration of President Bola Tinubu, particularly as there’ll be a new minister as well. What I want to be able to do is find even more ways that we can help with other programmes.
The Chibok programme got a lot of national attention because it was world known, like even in America in the most rural places, we knew about what had happened there.
Many of the girls have had to battle post-traumatic stress. And so our psychology and psychiatric services have been stretched in our health services because these are women that are between 26 to 30 years old. They’re not really girls anymore. That’s why I usually don’t say it, but they’re 26 to 30 years old, and so life is hitting. What happens between 26 and 30 for young women in these rural areas is that they get married and they start having children. So it’s been a difficult programme to run, but it has been a very important programme to run because it matters so much. Those Chibok young ladies, you know, they are one of the best signs of resilience, and I applaud the government for trying to work with us and partner with us to do that because, you know, the Chibok story is one that will always touch my heart and it hurts to even know how things happened.
How much has the government contributed to their welfare, and how far has this gone?
We actually got an individual to fund, like the first 15 or 20, and they were girls that escaped that night just before they were taken to the location by Boko Haram, but it’s been a blessing. The first group we educated were not from the ministry, but with the Ministry of Women Affairs, we had to start a whole new school to teach many of them how to read in English. It was a costly programme for us. So my dream is that one day, we will get to a point that we’ll be able to go around the country, and I would love partners like the Ministry of Women Affairs and USAID to say- we’ll give full scholarships for these young persons to change the future of their lives because, for me, I’m from the poorest families you can be in, in America- from that Appalachia region.
I was the first in my family to go and finish high school, and when that happened, I get to sit here and speak with wonderful, educated people like you. I get to meet people like presidents of countries and I get to meet all these different things because education is a great equaliser.
I wish that you know other Americans understood the story fully, and I’ll be telling the story because I want to see every village in this whole region where there are young ladies who might not have opportunities to be able to come, not just like the Chibok girls, but others that we can help for their future. So I think we’ve got a good future with the Ministry of Women Affairs. They’re a good organisation.
Females have been the best-graduating students for the past five years, among other feats. What does this portend for AUN and the future?
The strength of any society is truly built upon how we treat women and children. With women in a new era, even just in Nigeria- West Africa and emerging democracies around the world, women are getting more opportunities and education, and this will make countries grow. The strength of a country is based upon a middle class, and the strength of the middle class, as we all know it, is in America and everywhere around the world. Many times it’s the women that hold the homes together. They’re the glue for their families. So, when ways to get them an education are realised, as we have done at the AUN, they can have independence as well, and this allows us to have more people that are employable in the country.
What would you say has been the motivation for such a laudable feat?
What motivates one might not motivate others. So with women, one of the things I think they really appreciate in our school is our emphasis on safety. We have given the female students a conducive environment in which they can thrive academically. We do not tolerate any type of nonsense with a professor hitting on a student like a woman or saying if you don’t do this, you don’t get your grade. I will fire them just like I would do in America. I would not think one moment, and I would fight it nonstop. I would have no hesitation in that because female students need to be protected. They need to be taken care of, and we can say that we are the school that’s the most pro-woman institution probably in the whole state.
Do you think and believe that the future is female?
So for women, I think they are going to continue to be one of our strongest points because it is a selling point. But what we have to think about, too, are the guys that are going to school at the AUN. They might be like- wow, these women are so smart. They’re going to have great incomes; maybe I need to work harder, and then maybe I could marry one of them and have two great incomes. So, I’m kind of joking around this, but the truth is, the women certainly raise that bar, and I don’t apologise for that one moment.
It is such a blessing for me, and once again, being the father of two little girls that are very outspoken and are very good students (they are soccer players as well), all of this just makes me proud. When I got to see what women mean to our region and areas, particularly when I got to hear about the scheme- from waste to wealth, and our IDPs, that are women who are taking recycled materials and turning them into crafts, I have no doubts in the abilities of women. By the way, the US Embassy is going to put those arts and crafts on display in the future and start selling them. I’m taking a bunch to the US to churches that I would be speaking to for purchase at a fair market value so that women are able to keep a larger amount of it.
One of the women said to me, ‘You know I don’t have a husband. He left a long time ago. It’s just me at the IDP camp with my daughter’. She said, ‘The money I make out of this allows me to pay for her to go to school’. And now, she has ended up getting her law degree because of all the money she made from there. I thought if we’re making that kind of impact in people’s lives by empowering people, empowering women, and empowering those that sometimes are the most vulnerable in society, then you know that we’re doing God’s work easily.
We are currently running, in either the last four or five years, a programme with women where some of the people come in through Zoom from around West Africa and the world. Others come in physically to the campus in Yola, and they stay on campus and take courses that they are taught. We actually had a young lady and a couple that were in the IDP camps that went through this as well. So most of what we do started with the United Nations Population Fund.
Gender-based violence is one area AUN focuses on. Can you share what your observation has been?
We have a course that we offer in the law school that one of our professors teaches. Her name is Dr Jennifer Mike. She teaches the course, and the students really like it. It’s also on gender-based violence. By looking at the legal system, I’ve encouraged our team because we’ve got some manuals now on how to identify gender-based violence and how to really assist in this. So, I would like to see more of that built as an option in the general education liberal arts programme.
So I’ve encouraged the faculty, and I’ll be speaking more with them when they return to campus about having every discipline and opportunity to have something, either gender-based violence or gender studies, so that we can have a greater appreciation for both men and women. And you know, there’s nothing better than a man actually taking a course in order to try to learn more about women’s role in society so that they can be better citizens as well.
