One of the biggest Human Rights and Political Activists in Nigeria, and a front Leader of the recent EndSARS protests, Aisha Yesufu, has been listed amongst BBC’s 100 inspiring and influential women from around the world, for the year 2020,
Aisha was listed alongside Sanna Marin, who leads Finland’s all-female coalition government, Michelle Yeoh, star of the new Avatar and Marvel films, and Sarah Gilbert, who heads the Oxford University research into a coronavirus vaccine, as well as Jane Fonda, a Climate Activist and Actress.
According to BBC, this year’s 100 Women list “is highlighting those who are leading change, and making a difference during these turbulent times”.
Who is Aisha Yesufu?
Born on December 12, 1974, in Kano State, North-West, Nigeria, Aisha Yesufu is a Socio-Political Activist, and co-Convener of the Bring Back Our Girls Movement, an advocacy group that brings attention to the abduction of over 200 girls from a Secondary School, in Chibok, Nigeria, on 14th April, 2014, by the terrorist group, Boko Haram.
Yesufu, alongside a former Minister of Education, Obiageli Ezekwesili, were at the forefront of the campaign that drew attention worldwide, including that of the former First Lady of the United States, US, Michelle Obama.
Yesufu has also been at the forefront of the EndSARS movement, a campaign that drew attention to the excesses of a controversial Police Unit called the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS.
Mrs. Yesufu who was born by Edo parents, but raised in Kano, had always shared her difficult experiences of being a girl-child in a heavily patriarchal environment.
In her words: “By the time I was 11 years old, I did not have any female friends, because all of them had been married off, but I wanted to be educated, and leave the ghetto.
“Most of my mates were almost grandmothers when I married at 24.”
