Mojúbàolú Olufúnké Okome Speaking Topics

• The Chibok Girls: Structural Violence, Gender, and Education in Nigeria’s Northeast

  Although structural violence is pervasive in Nigeria, there are gendered, religious, class and regional variations that cause more or less marginalization. Girls born into poor families are affected to a greater degree because they are already marginalized by the combined consequences of the prevalence of extreme poverty and the gender-based discrimination that causes bias against girls’ education and toward more responsibility for housework and caregiving, as well as early marriage, all phenomena that are ubiquitous in Northeastern Nigeria, a region with some of the lowest socioeconomic indicators in Nigeria, which has also been embroiled in conflict.

• Globalization, Feminism and Power: An African Perspective

  This talk takes a look at the past and future to understand the interplay between globalization, feminism, and power to understand African women's situation. From the past, we can consider the record of victories won, gains made, and challenges that continue to move us to action. In the future lies the possibility of making change through the inspirational force of ideas, the mobilizational impetus of action that points out the shortcomings of the past and present and provides worthwhile alternatives.

African Immigration to the United States: Dimensions of Migration, Immigration, and Exile

Over time, the nature, form and process of African immigration to the United States have changed remarkably. Beginning with early African migration, which intensified in the period after the second world war, and during the period of the nationalist anti-colonial struggle for independence, until today, when many United States consulates in African countries are swamped with Africans seeking rapid and immediate exit from their respective countries, there are identifiable economic, political, and social push and pull factors that move people to the United States from Africa. Most significant among these is the phenomenon of globalization, encapsulated by the process of creating a New World Order.

The United States is central to the process of constructing and perpetuating this new world order. It is the primary architect and main beneficiary from the gains of globalization. The effects of globalization are manifested on the African continent in the Structural Adjustment Programs and democratization projects that have generated both negative and positive forces that drive the unflagging desire of Africans to migrate, immigrate, and seek political asylum in the United States. While scholars have identified a variety of push and pull factors that stimulate or generate migration and immigration, African Immigration to the United States is ignored in immigration studies literature.

Breaching Fortress Europe: By Any Means Necessary-- The Complications of African Migration to Europe

Although African migration to Europe dates back to antiquity, Africans' presence in Europe increased substantially from the 1960s, especially since the imposition of neoliberal reforms in the 1980s, and the political crisis that consumed some African countries in the 1990s and 2000s. There has also been increased migration to Europe by the few skilled and professional Africans allowed to take advantage of opportunities that have opened up for employment in fields where there is a dearth of expertise. Nevertheless, predominant conceptualization of Africans' movement into Europe entails breaching an impregnable fortress, using any means at their disposal. Those making irregular migration includes as a mix of refugees, asylees, documented and undocumented migrants. However, European economic crises and the vulnerabilities spawned in consequence, have laid bare politicized, securitized, xenophobic and callous responses, particularly in the frontline states that receive what is increasingly perceived as a "deluge." Given the siege mentality that has developed around migration, the negative xenophobic attitudes, discourses and policies that emerge from them, and the increased securitization of migration, the siege characterization seems even more apt.

Fleeing Boko Haram: The Trauma of Captivity and Challenge of Freedom

Captivity and freedom are seen as opposites. To be captive is to be imprisoned, detained, confined. To be free is to have liberty, autonomy, free will. It seems logical to associate captivity with trauma, and freedom with an end to trauma. However, enduring elements of trauma challenge the notion of freedom, especially when considering possible psychological effects of long-term captivity. The assumption that the cessation of captivity and experience of freedom constitutes a peaceful, joyful, and self-determining existence may be highly problematic, as may be the social implications of freedom and the impact of responses by others to a person once in captivity but now “free.” This article conceives of the route traversed from captivity to freedom by the victims of Boko Haram (including the young female students abducted from a school in Chibok) as akin to walking a tightrope—a tense, tenuous, perilous, unstable process. It is not impossible to get to freedom, but successfully traversing the tightrope may require unbelievable, extraordinary luck. The surest way to get through is to have the requisite training. Experience also helps. The experience necessary for surmounting the odds need not be experience of abduction and its horrors, but experience with strategies on how to cope with trauma. Such strategies can be provided through culturally appropriate psychosocial support.