For the first time in Nigeria, the queens of traditional kingdoms held a conference on Thursday 30 March to mark Black Women’s History Month.
Around 120 queens from all over Nigeria attended the event held at the Ife Ooni Palace in Ile Ife, Osun State, to discuss the impact of royal queens on national development.
The conference was organized by Ronke Ogunwusi and Janet Mba-Afolabi under the Initiative of Queen Moremi Ajasoro and the Olori Janet Afolabi Foundation.
The conference, titled “The Impact of Oloris (Royal Queens) on National Development,” examined the impacts of queens on their kingdoms.
In her welcome speech, Mrs. Ogunwusi, Ooni’s wife, who is also the founder of Africa Fashion Week London and Nigeria Week and CEO of an Adire Textile center, explained the reasons for the conference.
She said: “Today, for the first time in history, we are coming together to see how we can all work together on different projects to impact our communities.”
She invited the queen to take advantage of Adire’s training, which is free, adding that she has trained more than 500 women and girls in the trade.
Ms. Mba-Afolabi, who delivered the keynote address, said that there are so many challenges in Nigeria today.
“Our husbands, the kings, are at the forefront of solving these problems. But we must also stand up and support them.”
She urged the queens to identify problems in the domains, do a problem analysis, and strategize on how to solve them.
Ms. Mba-Afolabi said that if the queens achieve impacts with their projects in the communities, those impacts can be replicated at the national level.
Encouraging Queens to start small, she recounted how she personally teaches English for free and also feeds her students snacks.
Remembering that he started with 10 students, he said: “Today I have more than 150 students. I also authorized some merchants with 20,000 naira each and asked them to pay back 5,000 naira monthly so that we can give the money to others. None of them defaulted. They all repaid the loan on time too. This means you don’t need a lot of money to impact people.”
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The wife of the Governor of Osun State, Ngozi Adeleke, who was the special guest of honour, in her goodwill message, praised the organizers of the event.
She said she is committed to supporting and empowering women to develop Osun State. “I am ready to collaborate with you when you need me,” she added.