Victor Ezeja
Centre for Values in Leadership (CVL) on Thursday, October 27, 2022, honoured four women for their distinguished role in the engineering profession.
The awardees include Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Sanzid Nigeria Limited, Idiat Amusu; CEO, Chantaly Associates, Ebele Okeke; CEO, Guconcia Nigeria limited, Nkechi Isigwe and Principal Partner, Delkem Associates, Mayen Adetiba.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelThe event which took place at the Chartered Institute of Bankers Nigeria (CIBN) in Lagos, was CVL’s 56th Leadership Without Title (LWT) Award in the engineering sector.
Founder of CVL, Prof. Pat Utomi said the 56th edition of LWT series with the theme ‘Breaking the Glass Ceiling in the Engineering Sector’, focused on women in the engineering sector to acknowledge the pioneering role of those who struggled to break the barrier of women participation in the sector and make them continue serving as role model in the quest to raise awareness on the need for more women to make a career in the profession.
Utomi added that the motive of the series was also to draw the attention of leaders in both corporate and public authorities on the need to look into issues that still pose barrier to women’s career growth in the engineering profession.
During a panel session on the theme “Breaking the Glass Ceiling in the Engineering Sector, the panelists emphasized the need for parents to eschew the practice of making their female wards see engineering as a male profession, but instead, make efforts to encourage them at younger age to channel their instincts to engineering skills especially when they have been found to have flair for such.
President of the Association of Women Engineers of Nigeria (AWEN), Elizabeth Jumoke Eterigho said engineering is about problem-solving and urged parents to imbibe the culture of buying toys that challenge the instincts of their girl child and boost their interests in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) during formative years and not unnecessary ones like baby dolls. “The era of baby dolls is over. This is a time for problem-solving,” Eterigho stated.
She added that parents should encourage their girl-child to develop interest in mathematics, a subject that is very indispensable in the engineering discipline.
One of the panelists, Onyechi Aka said parents should study their wards at a younger age and identify what their natural instinct and abilities fall on. He noted that women engineers have more tasks in combining professional work with managing their homes.
Founder of the Performance Upgrade Lab, Isioma Utomi stated that women in the engineering sector still face the challenge of underestimation in Nigeria but the beauty of the profession is that it is merit-driven. She advocated the introduction of public relations in the field by women to enable them publicize their contributions in the sector.
Engr Amusu noted that the glass ceiling creating barriers to women’s participation in the engineering profession has been shattered but there is more to be done. She stressed the need for the creation of policies to remove all barriers to women in the sector. She described engineering as the foundation for national development.
Adetiba, a SMEs operator, who lamented that women engineers were before now discouraged from practicing, also expressed gladness that the situation has improved. She urged the government to provide incentives to female engineers to encourage their work and enable them to be able to inspire, groom and employ others so that the nation would not continue to rely on services of foreign experts to build the country.
Engr Isigwe, on her part, said the issue of barrier to women in the engineering profession wasn’t peculiar to Nigeria. She, however, charged women to strive and do the best they can rather than sitting and complaining about being denied the opportunity to excel in the engineering sector.
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with seven years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Master's degree in Mass Communication.
