The Nigerian women raising the bar in engineering

Not that long ago, the engineering profession in Nigeria was exclusively male. That is changing, and women can now be found in leadership positions as well as in the field.

The gender gap, nonetheless, remains formidable: Of the 60,000 engineers registered by the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), only about 4,500 are females.

PUNCH HealthWise spoke with three women who have risen to the top of their profession; although their stories are different, they all credit their success to hard work and determination and are doing whatever they can to help other women follow in their footsteps.

Dr Elizabeth Eterigho

Dr Elizabeth Eterigho, president of the Association of Professional Women Engineers of Nigeria (Apwen), is an industry pioneer.

Born in Lagos, she earned her PhD in Chemical Engineering (Biofuel and Catalysis) in 2012 from Newcastle University (UK) after graduating from the Federal University of Technology, Minna (Futminna).

She currently lectures at Futminna, where she conducts research and writes papers on engineering topics; she is also a Fellow of both the Nigerian Society of Chemical Engineers (NSChE) and the NSE.

Eterigho says that when she finished secondary school in 1983, she wanted to go into medicine, but circumstances eventually led her to engineering.

“You rarely hear about women in engineering, but I decided to be one of the ones people would hear about. I love challenges, I love occupying spaces that have traditionally excluded women.”

When she started out, there were three women in her class of nine, and she vowed to graduate at the top. “I was one of the best. I finished with Second Class Upper Division in Chemical Engineering and was retained as a lecturer.”

She went on to get her Master’s in Chemical Engineering, then her PhD in the same field. Eterigho was the first female lecturer in Futminna’s Chemical Engineering Department—the second was a student whom she had mentored and encouraged.

“I urged her to persevere even though men dominate engineering. But women can make it too, we just have to persist. Today, we have four female lecturers and 12 male lecturers in the department.”

Similar progress can be seen throughout the field, but it is slow going—some engineering departments still have no female lecturers, and there are professional organisations that have no female members at all.

“Part of the challenge is that the men have always felt that women probably can’t make it as engineers. But I have always told myself that I can, and I have. I don’t present myself as a female, I present myself as an engineer, and that has helped me through.”

Eterigho is the 17th president of Apwen, which was founded in 1983 by six female engineers. It was created to be an advocacy group to tackle gender bias—in society, in the workplace and especially at the NSE. Today Apwen is advocating for women to occupy 30 per cent of leadership positions, and they are pushing for official policies to support this goal.

“We have seen that when women achieve leadership positions, their male counterparts will try to drag them down. So we want official policies,” says Eterigho.

“If Nigeria is to be on a par with other countries, it must deliberately give female engineers a space to thrive. Why should Nigeria be so far behind in this area?”

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Apwen also reaches out to secondary schools, where they give young women technical and vocational education as well as mentorship and training, and to primary schools, where they help mothers so they can take their daughters to school.

“We have more than 85 female students on scholarships from primary school to university to study engineering. We are focused on them, and they are very determined. We don’t want child marriage and child abuse any longer.”

Eterigho sees engineering as the bedrock of economic development. “For Nigeria to develop, we need the manufacturing industry to be up and running. It is only then that our female engineering graduates can be properly absorbed. When the industries are functional and women are engaged, Nigeria will witness growth and development.”

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) concurs. Its 2018 economic review of Nigeria’s economy said that promoting gender equality could be an economic game changer for the country. “Nigerian women could help transform the economy if given the chance,” said an
IMF spokesperson.

“The report shows Nigeria suffers from widespread gender inequality and is, therefore, missing out on a key ingredient to economic success. Reducing gender inequality could boost growth by one and one-quarter percent on average.”

In spite of the challenges, Eterigho remains optimistic. “We are tearing down the stereotypes that have hindered women from embracing the engineering profession,” she says. “Now that more women are going into engineering and Apwen is doing a lot to support them, we know that the future is going to be different.”

Margaret Oguntala

Another trailblazer is Margaret Oguntala, who next year will become the first female president of the NSE since its founding in 1958. Since January 2022, she has served as the organisation’s first female Deputy President.

Born in Ondo State in 1964, she obtained a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Benin in 1986 and has worked for various companies; currently, she is MD/CEO of Bamsat Nigeria Limited as well as Managing Partner of Bamsat Engineering Services Ltd.

She is a Fellow of both the NSChE and the NSE, and has received more than 60 awards from various professional organisations.

“We are gradually breaking down stereotypes,” says Oguntala. “In the past, it was believed that women would not do well in some positions, but things are different now. We all need to come together and work together. With 4,500 women members, we can produce a female
NSE president every year if we are determined to do so.”

Oguntala is not deterred by the fact that women still represent only 7.5 percent of all NSE members. “I have heard it said that NSE is not ready for a female president. They forget that things have changed. We have a lot of women in the oil and gas sector who are doing very well. And Apwen is doing so much to bring more girls into the engineering profession,” she says.

For Oguntala, continuing education (workshops, seminars) have been key to her success, and will give other women an advantage during times of high unemployment. She urges young and aspiring female engineers to prepare academically for leadership positions, to be intentional about their goals and to do what it takes to stay on the cutting edge of their field.

Esther Gonda

Esther Gonda, an NSE Fellow and Officer of Order of the Niger, is also an outstanding role model. A former lecturer at Plateau State Polytechnic and Kaduna State Polytechnic, she retired from the civil service as a Permanent Secretary.

The electrical engineer says that women in her field face many obstacles because they are such a minority, but she believes that things are improving. Gonda, who graduated from Ahmadu Bello University in 1976, says she went into engineering because she was curious to find out how things work.

“I was the only girl in a class of 120. To be fair, the guys were okay. I didn’t want to be perceived as a woman, I just wanted to be one of the people in the class. Still, there were some who wanted to stop me because they thought I was doing something odd by studying engineering. One said he would change my course of study. But I loved my courses, I loved physics and mathematics.”

She warns that if a woman emphasises her femininity all the time, she will have a problem.

“You just have to go ahead and do what you want to do professionally; that has helped me a lot. I have worked in a refinery, and I just do my work. When they see that you can do what you are supposed to do, that you don’t shy away from what you are supposed to do by falling
back on the fact that you are a woman, then they accept you. So I encourage women to do whatever task is assigned to them. Do what you know is right.”

This story is published in partnership with the #TowardsEquality media alliance