Post by The Insight Desk with Ismail Auwal (@theinsights)

Many people are criticising ARISE News correspondent @Ojyokpe for asking Aliko Dangote about not having a male child. I see it differently. I strongly believe it was a very good question. In fact, the answer it produced made it, perhaps unintentionally, a feminist question.

Think about the millions of parents, especially in societies like ours, who have only daughters and are sometimes made to feel that something is missing from their families. They could listen to one of Africa’s most successful businessmen say that having a son is not his priority, and that even if he had one, the son might not do better than his three daughters, and suddenly ask themselves: Why the hell not?

Think also about the women who have been made to feel inadequate simply because they did not give birth to a boy. In many African communities, this pressure is real. A woman can have brilliant, successful daughters and still be asked when she will give her husband a son. Dangote’s answer quietly challenges that thinking from a place many people may not have expected.

But perhaps the most important person listening is the girl-child somewhere. A young girl in Kano, Lagos, Nairobi, London or anywhere on earth could hear that answer and realise that she is enough. That she does not need to be a boy to inherit ambition, carry a family legacy, build an empire or compete at the highest level.

That is why I think Ojy Okpe asked an important question. Sometimes, the value of a difficult question is not simply in how it sounds when it is asked. It is in the answer it allows millions of people to hear.

And this particular answer was worth hearing.

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