We cannot honor Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala without honoring her husband, this rare breed of “Nigerian” man who allowed his wife to attain such heights in her career without feeling threatened or intimidated by her success. Truly, there are very few Nigerian men like him, maybe 0.000000001% of Nigerian men are in his category.

Personally, I believe that a lot of accolades should go to her husband who stood by her all these years she was travelling all over the world, looking after the home front, while she went on to develop herself in order to attain this level where she now is.

A lot of female high flyers I know today have crushed their ambitions under the hammer of marriage. Nigeria is one place where marriage is synonymous to a woman losing her identity, her goals, her ambition, and in some cases her life. Many married women today have their dreams all buried under this institution called marriage, they do not realize who they are and never will simply because they said “yes” to one insecure Nigerian man out there who does not value what it means to be called woman.

Being called woman in Nigeria has reduced many women to persons who have now embraced the vision of: checking their ages to ensure that they get a ring on our fingers before a certain age, chasing babies, chasing daily food menu, chasing male and female children, balancing the equation of the number of children they should have, chasing nanny’s , chasing side chicks, etc. There is just a whole lot that women are forced to chase instead of chasing their purpose and dreams and being taught to realize that life is too short to chase mundane and low level dreams such as have been listed above.

To be a woman doesn’t mean to be second, non-existent or have your dreams crushed by one man or the society’s expectation of you. Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala has proven this to us and I want to challenge every Nigerian woman today never to kill her dreams because society called her woman.

To the men, please let’s work towards developing ourselves and our ego to accommodate such women because their maker has given them gifts that the world needs.

Finally to single ladies, please do not allow any form of pressure to push you into settling with these types of men:

1. Dream killers2. Insecure men.

Stay away from such men as these ones are intentionally working against God’s purpose for your life.