First Female Bank Chairman, Ibukun Awosika, Highlights Women’s Assets For Nation-Building
- Ibukun Awosika, Nigeria’s first female bank chairman, has highlighted the role of women in nation-building
- She noted that nations that invest in women grow faster than those that stifle and suppress women
- Awosika, who was appointed as a member of the Binance Advisory Board in 2022, stressed the need to invest in women
Legit.ng’s Pascal Oparada has reported on tech, energy, stocks, investment, and the economy for over a decade.
Prominent Nigerian motivational speaker and author Pastor Ibukun Awosika has described women as the most significant asset for nation-building.
Awosika, the first woman to be appointed chairman of a bank in Nigeria, commented on Sunday, May 12, 2024, at the Woman-to-Woman Conference organized by the House on the Rock, The Refuge, Abuja.
Source: Getty Images
Awosika stresses the economic value of investing in women
The conference, themed “Planted to Flourish”, began on Friday, May 10, and ended on Sunday, May 12.
Awosika noted that nations that invest as little as 20 percent in their women will outperform nations that undermine women and invest only in men.
She stated that even in churches, women command a larger population, as she harped on the need to harness them for societal gains.
She said:
“It is a women’s conference, which, to me, is a crucial mandate sector, so I always want to be where the Lord wants me to be in line with the message of the assignment for the season.
“For me, helping every woman, young or old, find her way to be a maximum asset for nation building and building the house of God is vital. There are more women in the church than men, which means the strategic asset of the church across the nation is the women.
“Even nations, the strategic assets are women and the young people because your investment in the young person, if you build right, you will derive more value because expectedly, they have longer years to give value back to you, so your investment will return to you.
“So, getting young people’s mindset right early enough saves them a lot of trouble and also helps the nation, the community, and the church to have them perform maximally for a much more extended period.
“But getting the women right means maximizing the most significant portion of the church's population. It is not a gender thing; if you look at it from a business perspective, what do you do with your most significant asset?
“If nations are brilliant, if you have a 50-50 gender population and your 50 percent is undermined, you are already disadvantaged. It doesn’t matter how hard the core 50 percent you are investing in works because if another nation only takes 20 percent of that other population and adds to their core male 50 percent, they will outperform you.
“So, it is a strategic decision for nations, churches, and communities to invest in maximizing the talent that women have.”
Church empowers members
On her part, Pastor Dayo Benjamins-Laniyi, the Mandate Secretary for the Women Affairs Secretariat of the Federal Capital Territory Administration, said: “We need women to support each other, to lead each other, to invest in each other.
“This for me has become a model of intentional humanitarian intervention. Woman to woman, you invest in her, and you accelerate progress. It's a very deliberate expression.”
Also, Pastor Mrs Chichi Aigbe, wife of the Lead Pastor, said: “For us, as women, we cater to the body, the soul, and the spirit of every woman in House on The Rock church and women generally in Abuja.
“This event is not tailored to women only, even men. As the spirit leads, in terms of expansion, House on the Rock, as a church, occasionally reaches out to the people.
“House on the Rock is a giving church. So, we are constantly thinking of how else to engage the communities around us. Among the church workers, we give a lot of money all the time, we give people support for small businesses.”
At the end of the conference, the church empowered six members with materials, equipment, and financial assistance to support their businesses.
Ibukun Awosika served on the board of First Bank for over a decade, where she was the bank’s and Nigeria’s first female chairman of any financial institution.
Binance appoints Ibukun Awosika to Global Advisory Board
Legit.ng earlier reported that the world’s biggest cryptocurrency, Binance, has appointed former First Bank Director Ibukun Awosika to its board advisory board to help it manage some of the most urgent regulatory problems in the industry.
A statement by Binance said the exchange had been prodding countries to take the initiative and adopt an economic future in which crypto and blockchain will play an important role.
The platform said that licenses and regulations will elicit discussion and negotiation and that more nations want to establish a promising future.
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Source: Legit.ng
