So incredibly excited to be selected to partner on this with
@pivotalventures
and an allotted $20 million fund for charitable organisations advancing women's rights, and for me particularly, areas of mental health, disability rights and their intersecting issues.
Each one of these leaders has an important perspective on what needs to be done to improve women’s health and wellbeing.
As part of my new $1 billion commitment to advance women’s power globally, these leaders will each receive a $20 million fund to distribute to charitable
My hearing aid has gone from N250,000 to N1.6 million. I want to say a lot about healthcare and living with a disability in Nigeria but I'm too weak right now. I'm open to donations. 🤷🏽♀️
If you're struggling with your mental health, please call 24/7 toll-free - 0800 800 2000 - to speak with trained and licensed counsellors for free.
No airtime required.
Call from anywhere in Nigeria.
Call anytime any day.
Please RT.
Someone is triggered and needs this.
My hearing aid has gone from N250,000 to N1.6 million. I want to say a lot about healthcare and living with a disability in Nigeria but I'm too weak right now. I'm open to donations. 🤷🏽♀️
Wake up! Have we started yet?
#WeAreTired
In the past 12 hours, I've heard that "the hijab is sexy", "you're not wearing the right ijab", "if it's the type in your dp you were raped in, I can see your curves", "you people don't wear pant under it".
I'm STILL NOT COVERED ENOUGH!
As we accelerate what may be Nigeria's biggest resistance in modern times
#EndSARS
, beware of how opposition/government will try to pick us apart.
In strategy advocacy, we learn these tactics because they WILL be used on you.
Here are 7 to take note of.
#Thread
#EndSarsProtests
Our biggest mistake will be to think that a mere announcement carries weight!
Why so eager to rejoice?
Have you forgotten that they announced that SARS was disbanded in 2017, 2018, 2019 and now?
Without an executive order and legislative action, NOTHING has happened!
#EndSARS
Ever since this made the rounds, 78 people have supported me in raising N997,532. I can't begin to explain how humbling this is. Someone actually donated N200 and I couldn't hold back my tears. Thank you all. For the RTs and the donations. Thank you!
My hearing aid has gone from N250,000 to N1.6 million. I want to say a lot about healthcare and living with a disability in Nigeria but I'm too weak right now. I'm open to donations. 🤷🏽♀️
This day last year, right in the middle of my
#mentalhealth
relapse, my mentor sent me flowers. In this picture, I am smiling. You'd never guess that I had had yet another near
#suicide
attempt and was on close watch.
THREAD.
Dear Muslim men,
During Ramadhan, you'll see some Muslim ladies eat and drink during fasting hours. You'll want to say something...resist it.
Mind your business.
I don't know who sold you people the idea that if you don't get married, you'll be lonely.
Running a mental health helpline and I can tell you FOR SURE that the data shows that majority of issues of loneliness come predominantly from married people.
These safety takes are getting tiring and disingenuous.
Do you know what it is to live your life in CONSTANT hypervigilance? No? Nigerian women know it best.
Here are things that we do that might have never occurred to you.
💔
Many things can be attractive in a man but you see when a man is expressive? When he easily and confidently uses words to express his deepest feelings? Damn! 😻
If you're here, do support the work we do
@SheWritesWoman
in giving
#mentalhealth
a voice in Nigeria; an organisation I founded as a result of my
#PTSD
and
#Bipolar
diagnosis and near suicide attempt.
More about our work here -
Even as a Muslim woman, I would be lying if I said I don't fear Muslim men. I literally have never seen wickedness this emboldened in my life in the name of religion.
It is WILD!
Protectors of women but it is at your hands that we meet the most harm. Nahh mehnnn
If you can, please consider holding space for people. Many are lonely, some are disconnected and don't have their people.
That Uber driver that won't stop talking, that colleague that tends to overshare etc.
Just a little attention and engagement can go a long way.
@ayosogunro
Ayo, if you need a +1, I'm a Human Rights Activist. I am a Human Rights Watch Marca Bristo Fellow. I am the first person with a mental health condition to testify before the National Assembly at the public hearing of the mental health bill. I stopped the bill from passing. Use me
As someone who has been in similar shoes as Salem, I hope his friends tell him one often unknown fact about narcissistic abuse.
You were NEVER in a relationship. You were targeted. It was abuse from DAY 1.
You're not stupid, Salem.
This is what narcissistic abuse is about.
7. Finally! They'll go and pick your influencers and give them political appointment or special assistant on SARS affairs lol. Or that committee I talked about? They'll select your fav to come and seat on it. Soon...*crickets*.
JUST IN:
President Muhammadu Buhari has just signed the Mental Health Bill into Law. Nigeria's last semblance of a mental health legislation was the Lunacy Act of 1958.
Since 2018, the team and I
@shewriteswoman_
have led ..../1
1. They'll say something along the lines of setting up a commission/committee or an inquiry into the issue. It's a lie. It's a delay tactic. What they need is how best to silence all this noise. Perceived movement isn't always movement. Beware!
We don't talk about the fatigue that comes with feeling like we're 'always' asking for help and support.
It feels like, "Why always me?". And that's where the feeling of being a burden to everyone comes from.
The consequence? We stop reaching out. And that's how we lose people.
2. They'll pass the buck. Senators will say it's reps 🥴. Reps will say it's the Minister of Police Affairs, that office will say it's state commissions and those will say it's a "few bad eggs". Watch their language especially their body language.
Easy to judge but I hope beyond all the staning & dragging, we realise that we are indeed the housemates.
Given the right circumstances, people & environment, many of us would breakdown and get triggered by insecurities and unresolved traumas.
The difference here is camera.
4. This one is where we get sucked in FAST. Guess what they do? THEY AGREE WITH EVERYTHING WE SAY. Can you believe that? Na format o. You know how we use "you're right" to silence people? Yup. That's the tactic. And just like that, things die down.
3. They'll poke holes with all the things that could go wrong if SARS ends. They'll focus on it so much that you begin to 'reason am'. Notice that they don't maintain this energy for the PROS of ending SARS. Resist!
5. They distract you. They amplify 'protest violence", they downplay "social media outrage", they censor media. They use other activities to drown the noise. Sometimes being tone deaf is a tactic for distraction. It works. Beware.
6. Don't fall for this one. It's so smooth. They'll tell us to form a coalition so that we're one voice. Lol. You guys! Na format o. They just want to reduce the noise so that they can drag. It almost never amounts to anything.
+1 🎉🙏🏽
🎧The Lord bless you
And keep you
Make His face shine upon you
And be gracious to you
The Lord turn His
Face toward you
And give you peace 🎧
🙏🏽 Amen, Amen, Amen 🙏🏽
Wake up! Have we started yet?
#WeAreTired
In the past 12 hours, I've heard that "the hijab is sexy", "you're not wearing the right ijab", "if it's the type in your dp you were raped in, I can see your curves", "you people don't wear pant under it".
I'm STILL NOT COVERED ENOUGH!
Please don't call our mental health helpline soliciting sexual favours. Men, please. Not only are you putting our counsellors in a very uncomfortable position, but you're also holding up the lines for people who genuinely need to speak with counsellors urgently. Please.
I am proud to be this year’s winner of the Goalkeepers Global Goals Changemaker Award (by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) for my continuing work on Goal 5, Gender Equality and Goal 3, Good Health and Wellbeing with my organisation She Writes Woman.
Do you know how many times and how often the government uses illegalities and human rights abuses to control us? We've become so de-sensitized.
Stay angry!
#EndSWAT
#EndSARS
#EndPoliceBrutalityinNigeria
It's the
#AbujaProtests
that are the most shocking to me. Shooting at and beating people? Water canon? Teargas? In the Federal Capital Territory?!
I refuse to believe that they'll do this on a weekday.
Where's the protest tomorrow?
#EndSARS
#EndPoliceBrutalityinNigeria
Notice that by themselves, these tactics can be used for good. But I assure you, coming from the government, it is NOT in your best interest.
#EndSARS
#EndSarsNow
Mark this day. On Feb 17th, 2020, a Nigerian who lives with a
#mentalhealth
condition spoke in this capacity before the Nigerian Senate. I am just humbled to be the voice of persons with mental health conditions in Nigeria. Above all else,
#NothingAboutUsWithoutUs
If you're ever raped, please don't take a bath after. I know, I know. It's literally your first instinct; to wash away what just happened to you. A big part of your evidence may be on/in you. Try...hold on and find your way to a response centre/clinic.
Please!! Please!!! Please!!!
#SustainTheProtest
, I beg you!
We know this tactic. It always works!
Don't let it work this time! 😭😭😭
Stop rejoicing for the love of God! Stop! NOTHING HAS HAPPENED if we don't get EXECUTIVE ORDER, LEGISLATIVE ACTION and JUSTICE!
#EndSARS
After a couple of my tweets went viral, I started getting DMs asking about easy entry points on getting engaged with politics and social change in Nigeria.
So here's a list of things you can start with NOW. I'll continue to update till perpetuity.
Here goes.
#Thread
Many of you are vile and wicked. You sprinkle a bit of religion on yourself so that you might hide your sickened heart under an egoistic religious cloak.
You're still what you are - a wicked person who worships their ego.
I will continue to say it. We, Muslim women, must interrogate the patriarchy embedded in our religion - both in theory(yes!) and practice. It is an uncomfortable thing, but it must be done.
No amount of hijab or covering, context or ijma' is loud enough to protect us today.
Dear
@BBNaija
, it's dangerous carrying out a social experiment without appropriate safeguarding. At the very least, housemates need periodic debriefs by a mental health professional.
Getting to Kubwa camp and seeing people carrying their suitcases on their head, I thought "so many people with faulty bags".
Soldier then started shouting at me to carry my suitcase on my head.
Me ((shouting back)): Don't worry, it rolls fine!
Everybody:
If anyone knows
@angeljbsmith__
personally, I'll like to support her with her dream of creating a mental health nonprofit.
@SheWritesWoman
can provide her with technical support.
Put me in touch.
DM is open.
I need women to recognise that these are not "relationship issues". This is abuse. You're not in a relationship. You're under coercive control from Day 1.
He's not being 'smart'. He's exploiting you emotionally and psychologically. Coercive control is illegal in some countries.
Treat her like trash and occasionally be nice. When women can't predict their partners next move, that person becomes more appealing to their mind. A nice guy who does nice things for her on a regular basis rather than on occasions feels boring & less rewarding to her...1/2
Because young Nigerians don't know how legislation works in this country, the government keeps throwing bones at us while the law remains the same.
If it ain't on paper, if it doesn't repeal something, if it doesn't propose something... IT'S NOTHING!
#EndSARS
#EndSarsNow
Living with
#bipolar
sometimes means dealing with hypersexuality. It's by far one of the hardest conversations to have because of the shame associated with wanting sex not just as a woman, but for me, a Muslim woman with a hijab.
This is (a snippet of) my story.
For the longest time, Nigerian women have been trapped with shame culture, purity culture, social conditioning that grooms you to find a man, keep a man and please a man. Even when you think you're reconditioning yourself, chances are that you're still playing by this rulebook.
I keep saying it - one of the biggest indicators that we're not okay is that we laugh wayyy too much about things that we should be upset about.
Fake food - hahahaha
Frauds everywhere - hahahaha
Comedy is a good coping mechanism AND can be a signal that we're not fully present.
So if you're reading this, RT. Tell someone that all we ever need to do is get through today...and the next, and the next. Tell them there's support and possibilities for
#mentalhealth
at
@SheWritesWoman
Tell them that I am here.
Hmmmm
Don't stream ANYTHING o!
Don't drink alcohol o!
Don't do any concert o!
Don't have a party!
Focus!
Some people have been paid to sow discord and we want to open door for them?
PEOPLE HAVE DIED!
ALWAYS remember that!
#EndSARS
#EndSWAT
#EndPoliceBrutalityinNigeria
Joining over 6000+ delegates advancing women's rights at the
@WomenDeliver
2023 conference here in Kigali. Also looking forward to speaking on the Young Mothers' Mental Health panel tomorrow organised by
@UnitedGMH
#WD2023
Oh my God! I'm so shocked by the positive responses to this tweet. I'm literally in tears because I didn't see this coming AT ALL. Thank you all so much! You can support by donating here -
You have nothing else to use to hurt a woman so you sexualise her. Worse, you say you'll fuxk her just to hit where you know every woman will fear.
You know EXACTLY the collective feminine fear of being sexually oppressed. You understand the power dynamic of rape. YOU KNOW.
I wear a hijab doesn't mean I'm from Northern Nigeria. I'm not.
I wear a hijab doesn't mean I'm married or betrothed. I'm not.
I wear a hijab doesn't mean I'm trying to marry every potential man. Calm down.
Ladies, practice this -
"I want you"
"I'd like us to become exclusive"
"I want a relationship. Do you?"
It's okay to say these. You don't have to sit and wait for someone else to do the work. Do it too.
Am I the only one who's uncomfortable about the new bill for additional seats for women legislators?
It sounds like good news.
It's framed like good news.
But...something's off.
Let's start with this - why are we creating "additional" seats and further increasing cost of gov?
No. He's doing his job.
End of! Did he need a protest to clean up the rot he already knew was in the system? Applauding elected officials for doing the barest minimum after we shout needs no applause.
#EndNASS
#EndSWAT
#EndPoliceBrutalityinNigeria
It truly breaks my heart that they're literally playing the tricks to the letter. People have been asking me how I know these things.
See, I moved to Abuja primarily for this reason - to understand the system. Since 2018, I've been chasing after a bill.
#Thread
#5for5
Sanwo-olu reminds me of a man I once dated. We'll agree on something, then he'll come back with something completely different. He'll then apologise and then repeat.
I thought it was both of us until I realised that his mum was calling the shots.
Make of this what you will.