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A study by Ruth Uwaifo Oyelere, dated December
2007 examines gender disparities in income in Nigeria and takes a look
at education benefits from democracy against this background. Titled,
Within and Between Gender Disparities in Income and Education Benefits
From Democracy, its conclusions mirror what one would expect, even
without the benefit of the close analysis it offers.

Oyelere concludes, “these results imply a growing
gap in mean income and returns to education across gender”. However she
finds that “within “ these disparities the advent of democracy has
produced benefits. Oyelere also discovered that the income gap between
men and women has grown on average and this growth gap is restricted to
the lower levels of education.

One of the significant implications of her study
was that, “inequality in the benefits of democracy are real and could
keep growing without government intervention.” So now there is a an
intelligent explanation for what has largely been anecdotal evidence of
an increase in the ferocity, as men claim, of the pressure from young
Nigerian females on the prowl for hollas, as in hol am well, aristos as
in cooler sugar daddies, boxed as in ready with the bucks, multis as in
six zero units, and Big Boys as in you know where. But then there was
always cause.

Back in the day, when every speech from OBJ was
premised on the future achievements of a strong and virile nation under
the military, anybody who expected a different outcome from what we
have now surely had to have been very short sighted. There is only one
obvious way to prove virility is there not?

The men in khaki conceived the country, (there is
no point in trying to avoid this pun) in their own image. Contracting
and supplying became instant careers for young women, just as clearing
and forwarding (aka backwarding and forwarding) from grid locked ports
was a direct path to financial liquidity for young men. When the
politicians in agbada came back the benefits of democracy flowed from
the houses, apartments and offices and hotels that had to be built and
furnished to accommodate the multiple realms of government, and so the
largesse was spread a little wider.

It was also orchestrated in accords and preludes
of the Honda variety that became the vehicles of choice. Each
generation has its brand symbols.

The gender disparities in who held the reins of
power and was therefore was in a position to allocate, were glaring and
for the most part went unquestioned. There has not been that much of a
shift today where Nigeria lags behind other smaller and less wealthy
African countries, like Rwanda for example, in breaking down gender
barriers and in legislating for the inclusion of women in governance
and politics.

In a society with large disparities in income
between men and women it should not be surprising that finding a rich
boyfriend or husband would be seen a path to financial security, or at
least as a means to an end.Between the young women and the rich men
there is a group that is left high and dry to seek self validation
wherever they can- young men who have not yet made their mark and can
be uncharitable and harsh judges of their female contemporaries.

This is often most obvious in movie depictions of
student life in our universities and in a number of ‘investigative’
journalism forays into the so called sexual depravity of female
undergrads that just stop short of branding them as prostitutes. What
is surprising is the venom sometimes directed against such women, given
that the whole situation is essentially one that operates on the basis
of supply and demand. There are two sides in this game: the procurers
who ‘charter’ the entertainment for the big men parties, corporate,
business and political and the well heeled clients, pillars of society,
corporate, business and political who demand the titillation.

As a society though we tend to be pretty prosaic
about the nitty gritty of life. Call it a kind of hard nosed realism if
you like, but when it is conveyed in traditional terms it sounds much
more romantic; it is not really. When earnest parents name their
daughter Ogbeiyalu, a poor man will not marry you, they are praying for
the best for her aren’t they? Granted there may be a concept of wealth
that encompasses the abundance of values that make you rich in personal
attributes and lead to success in spiritual as well as material terms,
but there is link between the two.

Maybe part of the problem today is that we have
lost that link. We do not question whether Chief and Madam Bigs
acquired their wealth by fair means or foul.

Going back to Oyelere’s study it showed that
within gender,women with tertiary education are the obvious winners in
a post democratic Nigeria with much higher increase in income and
returns to their education than their counterparts.

Education and wider access to it, is the path to improvement in all things.