Against all odds: The woman taking on Nigeria’s patriarchy

“Nigeria hates women.”

These three words, spoken by Chioma Agwuegbo during her 2019 TEDx talk, were not a provocation but a painful truth. In that speech, she outlined the deep-seated misogyny woven into the country’s institutions, culture, and governance, a reality she had witnessed firsthand.

But if the Nigeria of 2019 hated women, the Nigeria of 2025, she says, hates them even more.

Fast forward to 2025, Chioma strongly condemns the Nigerian Senate’s handling of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan’s sexual harassment allegations against Senate President Godswill Akpabio. According to Chioma, the Senate’s decision to suspend Natasha instead of investigating her claims is a blatant example of how Nigeria’s institutions are weaponised against women who speak out.

“Instead, they suspended her for six months and withdrew her salaries and emoluments. They have now denied her people, her constituents, representation. They have also announced that they’re withdrawing her security because she made an allegation of sexual harassment against a Senate president who has once been slapped for sexually harassing someone else.”

Chioma sees this as yet another case reinforcing her long-held argument that Nigeria systematically punishes women for demanding justice, further deepening the culture of impunity around gender-based violence.

But this is not new. Chioma has spent 16 years advocating for human rights and women whose stories have been erased and whose cries for justice have been ignored. She has seen three-year-olds raped and denied justice. She has seen women brutalised and blamed for their suffering.

She has watched as laws meant to protect women remain unenforced, while those meant to suppress them are swiftly passed.

And yet, she refuses to be silent.

Born in Kano State to a bishop father and an academic mother, Agwuegbo’s childhood was one of movement and adaptation. With her father’s frequent church transfers, she lived in at least 16 different places across Nigeria before adulthood. Rather than feeling unsettled by this, she embraced it.

She initially aspired to be a medical doctor, but mathematics proved to be her weakness. In a family discussion, someone pointed out that she loved to talk, read, and engage in conversations. That was how she chose to study mass communications at Ebonyi State University in 2002, a decision that would later shape her activism.

After graduation in 2006, she worked at ASO Radio in Abuja before joining the BBC World Service Trust as a radio drama producer. There, she honed the power of storytelling. Then came the moment that changed everything: the Arab Spring.

As she watched young people in Tunisia and Egypt use social media to drive revolutions, she realised Nigeria was behind. While other countries used digital tools for activism, Nigerians were still using platforms like Facebook and MySpace for casual interactions.

Determined to understand and harness this power, she moved to Birmingham City University in the UK in 2010 to earn a master’s degree in social media. At the time, it was an unconventional choice, but her research into how digital tools could shape governance and democracy would prove prophetic.

One of her most defining moments in Nigeria’s modern activism was the #EndSARS movement of 2020, where thousands of young Nigerians protested against police brutality. Chioma was in the thick of it, not just as a protester but as an organiser who ensured the demonstrations were sustainable.

She recalls how, after attending the protest for the first time, she and her friend Buki Williams realised that while people were standing for hours demanding justice, there was nowhere to buy food. That moment sparked an idea: “We decided to start bringing food to the protest grounds.”

From the next day, they mobilised resources, sometimes distributing as many as 500 plates of Chicken Republic meals with drinks daily. But what struck her most was a moment that highlighted how deeply flawed the Nigerian system was—when she handed food to the same police officers who had been ordered to brutalise protesters.

“We are all suffering the same thing,” she told them.

This moment of solidarity tells a bitter truth: police officers, often paid poorly, living in harsh conditions, and used as tools of oppression, were also victims of the same system that had left the average Nigerian frustrated and hopeless.

In 2009, an email landed in her inbox.

It was a piece titled “Where is the outrage?” and written by media entrepreneur Chude Jideonwo, questioning why Nigerians were silent about the state of their country, particularly the fact that then-President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua had been missing for months without handing over power.

Fifteen young professionals, including Chioma, responded. What began as a single protest soon transformed into Enough Is Enough Nigeria, one of the country’s most prominent civic movements.

This was when she realised the power of digital mobilisation. “They could use technology to build communities; they could use technology to push for change or to push for things that they were interested in.”

Her advocacy expanded beyond governance into gender rights and digital safety, eventually leading her to found TechHer, a social enterprise focused on empowering women through digital literacy, tech policy, and community support.

In 2015, while working on a project, Chioma needed to engage women in the tech industry. She tweeted a call for female developers, UI/UX designers and digital enthusiasts. Expecting only a handful of responses, she was stunned when over 100 women signed up in 24 hours.

This moment made her realise something crucial: “Women existed in the tech space, but they had no community, no visibility, no support system.”

That was how TechHer was born. Today, the organisation runs programs that teach digital literacy, train women in cybersecurity, provide financial aid to survivors of gender-based violence, and offer legal and psychosocial support for women facing online harassment.

Since 2015, TechHer has reached over 2,000 students in more than 20 schools and trained over 3,000 young women on online safety.

Chioma has also been vocal about Nigeria’s alarming underrepresentation of women in political leadership. She highlights the stark reality that in 2025, the percentage of women in the House of Representatives remains nearly the same as it was in 1999. Out of 360 seats, only 17 are occupied by women, making up less than 5% of the chamber. In the Senate, only four female senators serve out of 109.

She argues that while lawmakers can swiftly pass bills that serve their interests, crucial gender-related bills such as the Gender and Equal Opportunities Bill have been stalled for years. For her, increasing women’s political participation is not about tokenism but about ensuring that legislative decisions reflect the needs of all Nigerians, not just a privileged few.

Chioma’s activism has not come without consequences. She has been trolled, threatened, and harassed. Supporting a woman who accused musician D’banj of rape led to online mobs attacking her team, including a colleague who had a bag of faeces dumped outside her house. Chioma herself received threats so severe that she removed all photos of her niece and nephews from social media.

Despite the overwhelming hostility, Chioma is not backing down. Her current focus includes expanding the Emergency Response Fund to $1 million, scaling TechHer’s advocacy beyond Nigeria, and pushing for policy changes on gender-based violence and online safety.

Her message remains the same: “We are not complaining enough. Nigeria will not change unless we demand it. Everybody should be an advocate.”

As long as Nigeria continues to suppress its women, Chioma Agwuegbo has no intention of keeping quiet.