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Nigerian First Lady Aisha Muhammadu Buhari visited George Mason University on Thursday to discuss the need for changes to increase positive health outcomes for Nigerian women and girls.
Buhari, the wife of Nigerian President Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, spoke on the kidnapping and the attacks on Nigerian women and children by Boko Haram, an insurgency group that operated in the mountainous northeast region of Nigeria.
“The Boko Haram issue, it is a global issue attached to terrorism, which needs to be addressed globally,” she said, adding that, thanks to ideas and help from the international community, “we can now say we have successfully fought the Boko Haram insurgence.”
What they are facing now is the post-war situation. Many women and children have been rescued, but they are in terrible condition and suffer from malnutrition.
That’s why Buhari visited the Washington, D.C., region—to speak for the voiceless women in Nigeria who are suffering silently, she said.
“I and my entourage are in the right place where our voices will be heard,” she said. “Me being here tonight will change their condition forever.”
George Mason has about a dozen students as well as several faculty and staff members from Nigeria.
Mason PhD student Ernest Ogbozor, a Ford Foundation International Fellow in Mason’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, said Buhari’s visit was important to him as a Nigerian native. The first lady’s Future Assured program, an initiative that aims to improve the health and well-being of women and children, has direct relevance to Ogbozor’s doctoral research, which explores the effects and response to Boko Haram in rural communities in the Chad Basin. His wife, Onyinyechi Ogbozor, plans to begin her master’s degree in nutrition and food studies this fall at Mason.
Graduate student Onyinyechi Ogbozor (far left), nutrition and food studies, and her husband, Ford Foundation International Fellow Ernest Ogbozor, PhD candidate in the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (far right), with Her Excellency, Aisha Muhammadu Buhari, first lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, at the Fairfax Campus on Aug. 4. Photo by Evan Cantwell.
Buhari also talked about the education of girls in Nigeria and current plans to hold an international summit on the issue.
If girls are properly educated, then the infant and maternal mortality rate in Nigeria will decrease, she said.
“Once a woman is educated, she will know how to take care of herself,” she said.
Buhari was the guest of honor at a luncheon hosted by Mason’s Office of Global Strategy, Office of Admissions, the College of Health and Human Services, and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
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