December 28, 2012 -- Updated 0236 GMT (1036 HKT)
Hasfat Abiola is a democracy
advocate and daughter of the Nigerian politician Moshood Kashimawo
Olawale (MKO) Abiola, who was put in prison after claiming the country's
1993 presidential election.
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Civil rights activist Hafsat Abiola
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Hafsat Abiola is the daughter of Nigerian politician MKO Abiola
- She founded a group that trains female leaders and raises awareness of domestic violence
- Hafsat also runs a program aimed at reducing maternal mortality rates
The daughter of Nigerian
politician and philanthropist Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola,
Hafsat was at her second year studying at Harvard, United States, when
her father was sent to prison by Nigeria's junta after claiming the
country's 1993 presidential election.
Although MKO Abiola
garnered almost 60% of the vote, the West African country's military
rulers annulled the results and eventually charged the former
businessman with treason. His imprisonment prompted a wave of
demonstrations, led partly by Hafsat's mother and Abiola's second wife,
Kudirat.
In 1996, Kudirat Abiola
was shot in the head when the car she was traveling in was attacked on a
Lagos expressway. Hafsat was still in the United States with her
siblings when news came of her mother's assassination.
"All five of us were in
the U.S. when we heard, and we stood in a circle, and we held hands,"
remembers Hafsat. "We just stood there, and then I said to my siblings
that we won't let her down, and really since that time we've been trying
to make sure that we do not let her down."
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Two years later, in July
1998, MKO Abiola died while still in custody. Everything Hafsat has done
ever since is done through the prism of her loss and her desire to
continue the legacy left by her parents.
After Kudirat's assassination, Hafsat founded an NGO in her mother's memory, the Kudirat Initiative for Democracy (KIND), a group working to strengthen Nigeria's civil society.
Along with promoting
female leadership by offering training and support to women who want to
run for office and be active in public life, KIND is also tackling
issues such as violence against women.
"We wanted to also work
with protecting women from domestic violence, raising awareness about
the issue of domestic violence," says Hafsat. "Also, we're drawing tacit
public acceptance of it. If the public challenges people who abuse
their wives, their daughters, their sisters, their girlfriends, it will
stop, it will be not so easy to continue."
Last year, Hafsat was
appointed as a special adviser to the governor of Ogun State, Ibikunle
Amonson. Hafsat runs a conditional cash transfer project for the state,
where poor pregnant women are encouraged to use available healthcare
facilities for safer pregnancies in a bid to reduce maternal mortality
rates.
According to the World
Health Organization, maternal mortality in Nigeria is 630 per 100,000,
more than 20 times as high as in Europe or the United States.
"We need to drive the
women into our primary health centers," says Hafsat, explaining that
many pregnant women choose to not visit a doctor due to high costs.
"But for us the cost of
their loss of life is too high for us and society to bear, so we have to
incentivize them to overlook the cost," she says.
"So what we're doing is
that we pay them to go to the doctor six times before delivery, which is
a lot of times but we want to have enough time to be checking if
there's any complications arising that we have to prepare for.
"We pay them to deliver
in the hospital, so each time they go to give birth we give them a small
amount of money. It's not a lot, but it will cover transportation and a
little bit extra."
Hafsat says that through
her efforts and those of others in the country, the work of her parents
can reach a new generation of Nigerians.
"I think that if they
were to do it all over again, they would do it exactly the same way,"
says Hafsat of her parents. "Or if not, they would even make more
sacrifices because I think we only live once, and we must do what we
can."COPY http://edition.cnn.com/
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