By Moses Kay Fembeh (Onoja)
Across Africa, there are women whose lives cannot be measured simply by the positions they have held, the titles they have carried or the awards placed in their hands. Their significance is often found in the lives they have touched, the families they have sustained, the institutions they have helped build, the communities they have served and the opportunities they have created for those who came after them.
These are our matriarchs.
To celebrate them is therefore not simply to look backwards with gratitude. It is also to look forward with responsibility. Every generation inherits something from those who came before it, but it also carries an obligation to improve the circumstances of those who will follow.
The story of African women is, in many respects, a story of leadership that existed long before contemporary discussions about women’s empowerment. Across different societies and historical periods, African women exercised authority, organised communities, sustained economies, preserved culture, resisted injustice and influenced political life, even when their contributions were not always adequately recorded.
The historical record reminds us of women such as Queen Amina of Zazzau, remembered for her political and military leadership in what is now northern Nigeria; Yaa Asantewaa, the Asante queen mother whose leadership became associated with resistance to British colonial rule in the Gold Coast; and Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, who became a prominent organiser for women’s rights and political participation in colonial Nigeria.
They belonged to different societies and lived in different historical circumstances, yet their lives demonstrate that African women have never been strangers to leadership. Their examples also remind us that the history of Africa cannot be fully understood without acknowledging the women who shaped its political, social and cultural development.
The challenge has been that many of these stories were not preserved with the same consistency, prominence or institutional attention given to the stories of men.
That is one reason why celebrating our matriarchs matters.
We are not merely honouring individuals. We are strengthening the historical memory of a continent.
In the twentieth century, that tradition continued through women whose influence extended far beyond their immediate communities. Wangari Maathai demonstrated how environmental protection, women’s empowerment, human rights and democratic participation could become part of one wider movement. Through the Green Belt Movement, she mobilised women in Kenya around environmental conservation and community development, eventually becoming an internationally recognised advocate for sustainable development and peace.
Miriam Makeba carried another dimension of African influence into the world. Through music and cultural expression, she brought African identity and the struggle against apartheid to international audiences. Her voice became part of a wider cultural movement through which African artists challenged injustice and asserted the dignity of the continent.
Albertina Sisulu represented another form of leadership. Her contribution to South Africa’s struggle against apartheid demonstrated that political leadership does not always begin in parliament or government offices. It can emerge from families, communities, civic organisations and movements built around the conviction that injustice must eventually give way to freedom.
Then came women such as Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee, whose stories became closely associated with Liberia’s struggle for peace and democratic reconstruction. Sirleaf became Africa’s first elected female head of state, while Gbowee became a prominent peace activist. Their contributions, alongside those of many other African women, expanded the meaning of female leadership on a continent emerging from conflict, political upheaval and social transformation.
For Sierra Leone, that history carries particular meaning.
Our own national experience has demonstrated that women are not simply beneficiaries of peace; they are also participants in building and sustaining it. During and after the country’s civil war, Sierra Leonean women played roles in community mobilisation, peacebuilding, reconciliation, humanitarian work and the rebuilding of social institutions. Women have continued to contribute to public life in ways that reach from the community level to national and international platforms.
The Sierra Leonean story also provides an important example of how legal and institutional reform can create greater space for women’s participation. The Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Act 2022 established a 30 per cent quota for women’s participation in a range of elected and appointed positions. Following the 2023 elections, women’s representation in Parliament increased significantly compared with 2018, while women’s representation in local councils also rose. UN Women reports that women held 30.4 per cent of elected parliamentary seats following the 2023 elections and 34 per cent of local council positions.
That development is significant for Sierra Leone, but legislation alone cannot complete the journey.
A law can open a door. It cannot by itself determine what happens after women walk through it.
Meaningful participation requires women to have the resources, institutional support, professional networks, education and freedom to exercise influence once they occupy positions of responsibility. It also requires political institutions, businesses, communities and families to recognise women’s leadership as a normal and necessary part of national development.
This is where Sierra Leone’s experience becomes part of the wider African conversation.
The country has emerged from a devastating civil war, endured Ebola, confronted serious development challenges and continued building democratic and social institutions. Throughout these periods, Sierra Leonean women have remained part of the country’s resilience.
Women have worked in hospitals and schools, in markets and farms, in government offices and private businesses, in newsrooms and civil society organisations. They have served as lawyers, doctors, teachers, entrepreneurs, politicians, journalists, activists, diplomats and community leaders.
They have carried families through difficult economic circumstances while contributing to the wider economy.
They have helped preserve communities when institutions were under enormous pressure.
And increasingly, Sierra Leonean women are occupying spaces from which they can influence national policy, urban development, business and international conversations.
Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr is one contemporary example of that broader story. Her work in urban governance has placed issues such as climate resilience, sustainable cities, transportation, sanitation and urban development within the wider conversation about how African cities should respond to rapid population growth and environmental pressures. Her international roles have also connected Freetown’s experience with wider African and global conversations on cities and climate action.
But Sierra Leone’s story is much larger than any one name.
There are women working quietly in the provinces whose contributions may never appear on an international platform. There are female teachers shaping the confidence of girls in classrooms across the country. There are market women supporting families and sustaining local commerce. There are female farmers contributing to food security. There are nurses and doctors serving communities. There are entrepreneurs creating employment despite limited access to finance. There are journalists giving visibility to issues that might otherwise remain unheard.
These women are part of the same continuum of African female leadership.
The matriarch is not only the woman whose name appears in newspapers.
She is also the woman whose daily contribution holds together a household, a business, a community or an institution.
Sometimes leadership is the woman who refuses to allow difficult circumstances to determine the future of her children.
Sometimes it is the entrepreneur who creates employment for a handful of young people.
Sometimes it is the teacher who convinces a girl that she is capable of becoming more than the limitations society has placed around her.
Sometimes it is the grandmother whose wisdom and sacrifice hold a family together through generations.
These too are our matriarchs.
And the African woman of tomorrow must be recognised not merely as a participant in development, but as a builder of development.
She can be an entrepreneur creating employment, a professional leading institutions, a scientist producing knowledge, a farmer transforming food systems, a journalist shaping public conversation, an artist preserving culture, a technology entrepreneur developing solutions or a community leader addressing problems that affect ordinary people.
For Sierra Leone, this future is especially important.
The country needs women participating in the transformation of agriculture, tourism, mining, technology, education, healthcare, financial services, manufacturing and the creative industries. It needs women who can build businesses beyond survival, develop enterprises capable of employing others and participate in the decisions that determine how national resources and opportunities are distributed.
The country also needs more deliberate investment in the next generation.
The young Sierra Leonean girl in a classroom in Freetown, Bo, Kenema, Makeni, Koidu, Port Loko or a rural chiefdom should be able to imagine a future larger than the circumstances immediately surrounding her.
She should be able to see herself as a scientist, engineer, doctor, author, entrepreneur, filmmaker, lawyer, diplomat, journalist, university professor, public administrator or business leader.
Her location should not determine the limits of her ambition.
Her family’s economic circumstances should not determine the quality of her education.
And her gender should not determine the ceiling above her.
This is why the conversation about African women must move beyond celebration to opportunity.
A woman may be educated but lack access to meaningful employment. She may have a strong business idea but lack affordable capital. She may possess the ability to lead but encounter cultural or institutional barriers. She may occupy a senior position but still have limited influence over the decisions that determine the future of her organisation.
Africa therefore needs to move beyond celebrating women’s presence and pay greater attention to whether women possess the resources, authority and opportunities required to shape outcomes.
The economic dimension is particularly important.
Women across Africa are building enterprises, yet access to finance remains a major constraint. Initiatives such as the African Development Bank’s Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa, known as AFAWA, are designed to expand access to finance and strengthen women’s entrepreneurship.
This is relevant to Sierra Leone, where women play a substantial role in informal commerce, agriculture and small-scale enterprise. The transition from informal activity to sustainable business requires access to finance, markets, technology, skills, business networks and supportive institutions.
The future of African women will therefore be closely connected to the future of African economies.
A continent cannot speak seriously about economic transformation while leaving a large part of its entrepreneurial and professional capacity underdeveloped.
There is another responsibility that belongs to the women we celebrate today.
They must reach back.
A successful woman should not become the final chapter of her own story. She should become a bridge for another woman.
The executive who has climbed the corporate ladder can mentor a younger professional. The entrepreneur who has learned how to secure financing can help another woman understand the process. The woman who has entered public leadership can encourage younger women to participate in civic life. The professional who has overcome barriers can share the knowledge that made her journey possible.
This is how individual achievement becomes collective progress.
It is also where the idea of matriarchy as legacy becomes important.
Our matriarchs should not only be remembered for what they accomplished during their lifetimes. Their deeper legacy lies in the structures, opportunities, values, knowledge and examples they leave behind.
A legacy is not simply what remains after a person is gone.
A legacy is what continues because that person lived.
For this reason, Sierra Leone, like the rest of Africa, must become more intentional about documenting the lives of its women.
Our national history should contain the stories of women who contributed to peace, education, healthcare, politics, business, journalism, agriculture, culture and community development. Their experiences should not survive only through family memories or occasional celebrations.
We need more biographies, documentaries, interviews, archives, oral histories and publications that preserve the journeys of Sierra Leonean women.
This is particularly important for a country whose modern history has been marked by conflict, reconstruction and social transformation. The story of Sierra Leone cannot be told only through wars, political transitions, economic crises and institutional milestones. It must also be told through the women who kept communities functioning, raised families, built livelihoods and helped the country move forward.
Their stories belong to Sierra Leone’s national memory.
They also belong to Africa’s wider story.
When we document the life of a woman who built a business from very little, we preserve more than her biography. We preserve lessons about resilience and enterprise. When we document a woman who served her community for decades, we preserve an example of civic responsibility. When we record the journey of a woman who broke barriers in her profession, we give another generation evidence that those barriers can be crossed.
Recognition therefore has a deeper purpose.
An award should never be merely a trophy.
At its best, recognition tells society that a particular life and contribution deserve to be remembered. It creates a public record of service and gives younger generations examples from which they can learn.
But recognition without continuation can become ceremonial.
The ultimate purpose of celebrating our matriarchs should be transformation.
For Sierra Leone, that transformation must include creating a society in which girls can access quality education, women can participate fully in the economy, female entrepreneurs can access finance, women can contribute to public decision-making and young women can enter professional life without having to overcome unnecessary barriers simply because they are women.
There has been measurable movement in this direction. UN Women reports that Sierra Leone’s GEWE framework has contributed to increased women’s representation in political institutions, while its programmes have also supported women’s participation in peacebuilding, local governance and civil society.
The task now is to make such progress durable.
The African girl sitting in a classroom today should be able to imagine herself as a chief executive, scientist, author, engineer, filmmaker, diplomat, judge, entrepreneur, academic, parliamentarian or community leader.
The young Sierra Leonean girl should see that possibility as part of her country’s future, not as an extraordinary exception.
That is the responsibility of the present generation.
We cannot continue celebrating extraordinary women while leaving the structures that restrict millions of other women unchanged. We cannot applaud one woman for breaking a barrier and then allow the same barrier to remain in place for everyone else.
Progress must therefore be seen in the number of girls who remain in school, the number of women who gain access to capital, the number of young women who find mentors, the number of women who enter leadership, the number of enterprises created and sustained by women, and the number of women participating meaningfully in decisions that affect their communities and countries.
Most importantly, younger women should be able to look at the generation before them and see not an unreachable distance, but a pathway.
These are the responsibilities that should accompany every celebration of African women.
Our matriarchs deserve more than applause.
They deserve continuation.
They deserve to see their struggles translated into opportunities for others, their experiences translated into knowledge, and their achievements translated into institutions that can outlive them.
The future of African women will be shaped not only by what governments promise, but by what families teach, what institutions practise, what communities tolerate, what businesses invest in and what societies choose to value.
For Sierra Leone, that responsibility is especially personal. We have a country whose women have lived through conflict, reconstruction, epidemics, economic hardship and profound social change. Their resilience is already part of the national story. The next step is to ensure that resilience is matched by opportunity, representation, economic power and institutional influence.
The women who came before us carried Sierra Leone through difficult chapters.
The women of today are helping to shape its next chapter.
Our responsibility is to ensure that the women of tomorrow inherit not a closed book, but an open page.
Honour the women who built the road, then make the road wider for those coming behind them.
That is the true meaning of legacy.
Perhaps the greatest tribute we can give our African matriarchs is not the ceremony, the applause, the photographs or the awards.
It is to ensure that the young girl watching from somewhere in Africa — or sitting in a classroom in Sierra Leone — grows up believing that her future does not have to be smaller than her dreams.
When her time comes, she should not have to ask whether there is a place for her.
She should already know that there is.
The future of African women must not simply be about being included in Africa’s story. It must be about having the opportunity, confidence, knowledge and influence to help write the next chapter of that story.
The women who came before us have already written important chapters.
The women of today are writing new ones.
Our responsibility is to make sure that the women of tomorrow inherit not a closed book, but an open page.
That is the future worth building.
And that is the legacy our matriarchs deserve.
Moses Kay Fembeh (Onoja)
Writer, Publisher & Executive Director, Heroes Media Group
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