Calabar, Nigeria – Asi Ukpo Cancer Centre in Calabar has challenged women to believe they are enough and do not need to be married or have children to start seeing themselves as people of value.
This was disclosed by Mr Yegwa Ukpo, Executive Director of the Centre during an engagement to commemorate the 2025 International Women’s Day Celebration with the theme: “Accelerate Action.”
International Women’s Day is commemorated annually on March 8 as a global day for celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women and also to call for gender equity.
Ukpo said the 21st-century woman needs to be radical and start seeing things from her own perspective because many people, including women, fundamentally see things from men’s perspective.
“Women should start seeing themselves as people of value; they don’t need to be married or to be mothers to be people of value; in fact, they are enough just being women. They don’t need anything to make them valuable.
“Sadly, people see a lot of things that women do as common, but when a man does this thing, it becomes extraordinary or exceptional; the women need to know that the world revolves because they are here,” he said.
On her part, Dr Chinyere Njoku, a Specialist Radiation and Clinical Oncologist at Asi Ukpo Hospital, said they had to have the engagement to let women, especially those in the health sector, know that they need balanced mental health.
According to Njoku, health workers take care of patients; if they are not mentally stable, that will reflect on how much care they give to the patients and how dedicated they are to their jobs.
The clinical oncologist also used the opportunity to appeal to women to identify mentors who can help them navigate the challenges of being women in society.
“People still say women have issues, they don’t like each other and are toxic; this is because the lives of many women are not balanced; any woman with a balanced life becomes lovable and is willing to lift other women.
Similarly, Dr Otu Egbe, a Clinical Psychiatrist in the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Calabar, called on the women to choose the kind of lives they want to live early,
He said the women need to choose to either be married or single and also choose a career path that gives them fulfilment.
He added that though it was important to work, women should be able to balance things and know when to switch roles from being professional women to family women.
