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More Nigerians are bringing global acclaim to our father land. Nigeria’s incredible endowment is not in question.
To accentuate this reality, our compatriots continue to give us and the world reason to celebrate and clink glasses. Dr Emem Omokaro is the latest to give Nigeria the good name she deserves. Find out why as you read on.
LAGOS, Nigeria / Vanguard / October 26, 2008
“I am moved by the isolation and poverty of the elderly”— Dr Emem Omokaro
Written by
Remmy Diagbare
Opebi Road in Ikeja, Lagos State, is surprisingly without traffic. For a Friday afternoon, this is quite unusual. Although, I haven’t been on this road for quite a while, my recollection of it is bumper to bumper drive.
“Turn into Salvation Road,” I instruct the taxi driver. My mission was to Methodist Street; my business, to chat with Dr Emem Omokaro. Not a familiar name, I bet. But, her older sister’s should ring a bell: Uduak Umondak. Udy, for short, to those of us who consider her a friend. Former actress, former Akwa Ibom first lady, former designer and now producer and presenter of a Christian TV series, HIS WORD MADE FLESH.
However, this is not about Udy. It is about a remarkable achievement of her look-alike. Like her vivacious older sister, Emem is more slender yet glamorous. She has a flair for fashion design, too, a vocation she had a five-year romance with.
I arrive the gate of Udy’s home and waiting for me by the gate is the subject of this interview. We hug and exchange pleasantries. Emem hasn’t added a jot of weight since I last saw her several years ago. I size her up as she leads the way up the short flight of stairs that leads into a small hallway. Turning left, we enter Udy’s converted living room. She gave up her spacious living room to build a studio for her award-winning TV programme.
Emem is wearing black trousers, white three-quarters sleeved ruffled shirt and black waist coat, looking every bit the corporate woman that she is. An academic, entrepreneur and a creative artist, Emem is recipient of many awards and commendations.
Last July, she added another feather to her cap. Her doctoral thesis was adjudged the best in 2005. She says of her latest achievement, Nigerian Universities Doctoral Thesis Award in Social Science. She had also won the Exxon Mobil Scholar (1976 – 1980) and winner, Louis Edet Prize in Sociology. She was also awarded the University of Calabar Foundation Scholarship for Post-graduate Studies for best graduating student in her class.
She achieved success as a fashion designer and was awarded the National Merit Award for Arts and Culture (NAMAAC) for Most Outstanding Individual Promoter of the Nigerian Fashion Designs (1995). She served as Director on the Board of International Merchant Bank (1994-1999) and she is currently CEO, First Davern Investment Limited.
She founded “Designing Success Nigeria” – an enterprise engaged in teaching Life Strategies and Success by design to corporate organizations and small groups. She also undertakes sponsored school tours to promote excellence and enterprise.
Emem is a poet and author of “Beyond Dreams” – a collection of poems for entrepreneurs and all who care to dream. She lives in Calabar and is married to Prof Omokaro and they have two children.
For the doctoral thesis award, her work was adjudged and awarded by the NUC, [National Universities Commission] for the best thesis in a particular category. In this case, it is in the social sciences. My thesis: “Some Non-Cultural Determinants of Adult Children Care of Elderly Parents – A Case Study of Adult Children Workers in the University of Calabar” - was adjudged the best Ph. D. thesis written in 2005; although, the formal presentation only took place in July this year.”
I am inspired by the slight, almost pretty looking lady, whose age I am unable to guess. This is one woman who is passionate about what she does. Hard working, efficient, yet she manages to look glamorous in an effortless manner.
Fancy her fluid from the academia to the corporate world of banking and the five-year fling with fashion, which by the way was not just a passing phase. She went into it big-time with as much zest as she puts into everything she does. “I came into fashion in 1985 because of the creative instincts in me and I wanted to express myself. My fashion had international buyers. I made contemporary African outfits and I did a lot of promotional tours so, I was always out.
In fact, that was what linked me with me friends’ aged family because I was always taking messages forth and back for them.
“At some point, I represented Nigeria. I was nominated by the Ministry of Women Affairs and UNDP to South Africa twice. I also represented my state, Akwa Ibom, at the National Festival of Arts & Culture. Theme for the competition was Contemporary African Fashion. There, we swept all the gold.
“When it was time for nomination for merit award, my state nominated me, and, I won that award, National Merit Awards For Arts And Culture For The Most Outstanding Individual Promoter Of The Nigerian Fashion Design.”
Dr Emem Omokaro is an inspiration to many young women who she mentors, for me listening to her, I am already inspired. How could one woman possibly be such a high flying achiever and still be a good mother and wife? I am curious. “Number one, I will say it is grace. Whatever I set my heart to do, I do it with conviction and enjoyment.”
This brings me to her latest conquest. What inspired her project on the aged?
“I was moved by the isolation, poverty and dependency of elderly parents. I was particularly inspired by some friends who live abroad. And most times when I frequent those states abroad I had occasion where they would beg that I take provisions back home. They would implore that I not only take the things but also seek after their welfare.”
In helping her friends, she stumbled across the revelation that would form the fulcrum of her doctoral thesis.
“When I visited these homes, I was moved by the desperation that I saw. I was also moved by the helplessness of my friends abroad. There they were somehow stuck, willing, very responsible and obligated but somehow incapacitated because of the distance, and the fact that the structure are not in place in their country and they could not make the arrangements that they would love to make. This prompted my curiosity.”
Her curiosity led her to investigate this short coming. According to her findings, most of these parents had children other than those abroad. So, what happened to the other children? Why couldn’t they take up the up-keep of their aged parents?
The research findings threw up startling revelations on traditional beliefs and persuasions.
“The research sought to find out the non-cultural variables that affect adult children’s care of their parents. Society says that once you have a child, it is a guarantee for your old age. This is based on (filial) solidarity and patterns of mutual help that exist in family settings.
But nobody was asking about the quality of care. Even though the children are there and society demands that they care; which indeed they do. But, what is the quality of care? Is the help regular? Is it adequate? What is the quality of the medical and financial care? Is it available at all? I sought to know what the reality is; not just the theoretical assumptions.
“Is it enough to take care of the surge in the population of the elderly? That took me to the statistics. Everybody is growing old. Look around you, how many people do you know are over fifty. So, will the care of the children be adequate in a country like Nigeria, where you do not have structures concerning the welfare of the elderly? I thought this was a significant research topic. So, I set out to find out whether the government should still continue to depend on the moral persuasion that adult children should care for their elderly or whether the government should rise and do something by putting structures in place/”
In order to find a valid and explicit explanation, she had to look for the theory that will align with the method that she wanted to use. It was then that she discovered that sociological theories did not provide an explanation.
“Because the traditional fundamental theories tell you that so long as you have marital and family traditions, the problems associated with aging will be taken care of. Then, you have another theory, the exchange theory. That one tells you that if a parent invests his time and money to take care of a particular child, that child owes the parent a duty; so it becomes reciprocal.
Another theory is the role theory. It tells you that every society prescribes, maybe, by gender or position in the family, who should be the care-giver. For instance, if a tradition says the role should be that of the first son, every body assumes that he should take up the role automatically. But, I found out those traditional sociological theories could not extend the quality of care. They just assumed that the adult child will become oriented by tradition, norms and obligations to provide care.”
For her to be able to investigate the quality of care, she had to expound these theories. Taking for granted that these theories are alright, she proceeded to investigate other variables that would make an individual incapable of fulfilling his expected roles. Her findings threw up these salient issues.
“Number one, was income. Two, size of the household, which is the nuclear family. The measure of responsibility that I used to asses this was how many dependents? And, we used the distribution of children in nursery, primary and secondary schools as well as university to measure that financial burden; so that I am looking at how this can affect ability to give necessary care even though the care-giver is willing.
“Then I looked at the perception of need. That means, for instance, do I think my parents have needs? Am I paying enough attention to the actual needs of my parents?’’
What was interesting about Emem’s findings and which may have won the hearts of the award committee was the misplaced perceptions and presumptions that the elderly are well cared for irrespective of all indices. Her research exposed the lapses in these simplistic assumptions.
For as different as our faces are, so are the challenges faced by adult care-givers; which militate against their ability to play this ordinarily natural role. Some of these issues, her findings revealed, were that the more the children in a household, the more the distribution of these children in institutions, the less the care available for parents.
The perception of need is directly correlated with the way care-givers provide. “Children who thought their parents had housing needs provided for them while those who thought their parents had health or financial needs, made provisions to meet those needs. What was interesting about her findings was that the mean of the percentage was so low. It was only 26% of adults who thought their parents had needs in particular areas and provided for it. So, if the perception of need is 26%, it means they have their needs but the children are not seeing it.
“The question, then, is why they are not seeing it? That was what my model revealed - that they are not seeing it because, they have their own obligations. They have their own multiple realities: children in schools, their career and other challenges. So, they will rather not see… You will notice that children only run home when they hear their parents are in critical conditions.’’
From the questionnaires that she sent out, 95 percent of respondents agreed that children should take care of their immediate needs first before their parents’. And 98 percent had their children education as top priority. This was followed by their children’s health care. These options, she concludes, expose the elderly to poverty.
“This is so because government does not have the structure, in place, to help adult children to spread the burden of care, unlike what obtains in developed societies. There is nothing in Nigeria. There is no security system. There is no welfare system to help cushion the hardship as one slows down with age.’’
Dr Omokaro’s research did not just end with its findings. She made recommendations that can make it easier for adults to give quality care to the elderly. “In summary, I made some recommendations that Government can give some form of tax relief to workers who are caring for the elderly.
Just as you have with children. You are given tax relief based on the number of children you have. Secondly, the elderly, who are still active, could be employed in advisory capacity at the local government level.”
In no time after what seemed like thirty minutes but was actually 4 hours, I had to take my leave. In my mind, was a niggling feeling of guilt that perhaps, I may have fallen short in my own responsibility. Guilt-ridden, I put a call through to Mum.
© 2008 Vanguard Media Limited
