Gender and Religion in Nigeria: The Role of Northern Nigerian Muslim Women in National Development.

What is the role of the northern Nigerian Muslim women in national development? This is a question for which we do not have a good answer. All that we know is how important women are in marital life as housewives but their role in politics and civil service remain obscure. This is because the literature on Nigeria's national development is relatively silent on the contributions of Muslim women. In northern Nigeria, awareness about the role of Muslim women in development gained momentum in 1985 with the formation of The Federation of Muslim Women’s Associations in Nigeria (FOMWAN). Awareness was further enhanced in 1995 as a result of the effective participation of northern Nigerian Muslim women in the International Conference on Women in Beijing, China. The case study is an attempt to analyze the role of Muslim Women in an urban middle-class context in Northern Nigeria.