Chief
Chief may refer to:
Title or rank
Military and law enforcement
* Chief master sergeant, the ninth, and highest, enlisted rank in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force
* Chief of police, the head of a police department
* Chief of the boa ...
Margaret Ekpo (27 July 1914 – 21 September 2006) was a
Nigerian
Nigerians or the Nigerian people are citizens of Nigeria or people with ancestry from Nigeria. The name Nigeria was taken from the Niger River running through the country. This name was allegedly coined in the late 19th century by British jour ...
women's rights
Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...
activist and social mobilizer who was a pioneering female politician in the country's
First Republic and a leading member of a class of traditional Nigerian women activists, many of whom rallied women beyond notions of ethnic solidarity.
[Toyin Falola, Adebayo Oyebade. Africa World Press, 2002, p. 374. ] She played major roles as a grassroots and nationalist politician in the Eastern Nigerian city of
Aba, in the era of a hierarchical and male-dominated movement towards
independence
Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the statu ...
.
[Jeremiah I. Dibua. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd, 2006, p. 68. ]
Early life and education
Margaret Ekpo was born in Creek Town,
Cross River State, to the family of Okoroafor Obiasulor
ho was originally from Aguluzigbo, a rural town in Anaocha Local Government Area of Anambra Stateand Inyang Eyo Aniemikwe. Through her mother, she was a member of the royal family of King
Eyo Honesty II
Eyo Honesty II (; –1835) was the ruler of Creek Town from 1835 until his death on 3 December 1858. Creek Town was part of the Efik city-states of the Old Calabar province in the Bight of Biafra.Nair, King and Missionary, p.242 Eyo was born in ...
of Creek Town. She reached standard six of the school leaving certificate in 1934. However, her goals of further education in teachers training were put on hold after the death of her father in 1934. She then started working as a pupil-teacher in
elementary schools
A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...
. She married a doctor, John Udo Ekpo, in 1938.
He was from the
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*Ibibio language
*Ibibio people
*Ibibio Sound Machine, an English electronic afro-funk band who sing in Ibibio
See also
* Ibiblio
ibiblio (formerly SunSITE.unc.edu and MetaLab.unc.edu) is a "collection of collections", a ...
ethnic group, while she was of
Igbo and
Efik heritage. The couple later moved to Aba.
In 1946, she had the opportunity to study abroad at what is now
Dublin Institute of Technology,
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
. She earned a diploma in
domestic science and on her return to Nigeria she established a Domestic Science and Sewing Institute in Aba. She was in the woman’s rights activist
Political career
Early politics
Margaret Ekpo's first direct participation in political ideas and association was in 1945. Her husband was indignant with the
colonial administrators' treatment of indigenous Nigerian doctors but as a
civil servant
The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...
, he could not attend meetings to discuss the matter. Margaret Ekpo then attended meetings in place of her husband, the meetings were organized to discuss the discriminatory practices of the colonial administration in the city and to fight cultural and racial imbalance in administrative promotions. She later attended a political rally and was the only woman at the rally, which saw fiery speeches from
Mbonu Ojike
Mazi Mbonu Ojike (c 1914 - November 29, 1956) was a Nigerian nationalist and writer. He advanced from a choirmaster, organist, and teacher in an Anglican school to become a student in America and then a cultural and economic nationalist. He was ...
,
Nnamdi Azikiwe
Nnamdi Benjamin Azikiwe, (16 November 1904 – 11 May 1996), usually referred to as "Zik", was a Nigerian statesman and political leader who served as the first President of Nigeria from 1963 to 1966. Considered a driving force behind the n ...
and
Herbert Macaulay. By the end of the decade she had organized a Market Women Association in Aba to unionize market women in the city.
["S-South Presidency Long Overdue, But...", ''Vanguard'', Nigeria, 11 July 2005.] She used the association to promote women's solidarity as a platform to fight for the economic rights of women, economic protections and expansionary political rights of women. Ekpo's political career ended with the commencement of the
Nigerian Civil War
The Nigerian Civil War (6 July 1967 – 15 January 1970), also known as the Nigerian–Biafran War or the Biafran War, was a civil war fought between Nigeria and the Republic of Biafra, a secessionist state which had declared its independence f ...
. At that time, she was detained by Biafran authorities for three years in prison with adequate feeding.
Activism
Margaret Ekpo's awareness of growing movements for
civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
for women around the world prodded her into demanding the same for the women in her country and to fight the discriminatory and oppressive political and civil role colonialism played in the subjugation of women. She felt that women abroad including those in Britain, were already fighting for civil rights and had more voice in political and civil matters than their counterparts in Nigeria. She later joined the
decolonization-leading
National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons
The National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) later changed to the National Convention of Nigerian Citizens, was a Nigerian nationalist political party from 1944 to 1966, during the period leading up to independence and immediately ...
(NCNC), as a platform to represent a marginalized group. In the 1950s, she also teamed up with
Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti to protest killings at an
Enugu
Enugu ( ; ) is the capital city of Enugu State in Nigeria. It is located in southeastern part of Nigeria. The city had a population of 820,000 according to the 2022 Nigerian census. The name ''Enugu'' is derived from the two Igbo words ''Énú ...
coal mine; the victims were leaders protesting colonial practices at the mine. In 1953, Ekpo was nominated by the NCNC to the regional
House of Chiefs A House of Chiefs (or ''House of Traditional Leaders'') is a post-colonial assembly, either legislative or advisory, that is recognised by either a national or regional government as consisting of and providing a collective, public voice for an eth ...
, and in 1954 she established the Aba Township Women's Association. As leader of the new market group, she was able to garner the trust of a large number of women in the township and turn it into a political pressure group. By 1955, women in Aba had outnumbered male voters in a citywide election.
Margaret Ekpo won a seat to the Eastern Regional House of Assembly in 1961, a position that allowed her to fight for issues affecting women at the time. In particular, there were issues on the progress of women in economic and political matters, especially in the areas of transportation around major roads leading to markets and rural transportation in general.
[ ]
Recognition
After a military
coup ended the First Republic, she took a less prominent approach to politics. In 2001, Calabar Airport was renamed
Margaret Ekpo International Airport.
She died 5 years later in 2006.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ekpo, Margaret
1914 births
2006 deaths
National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons politicians
Nigerian women activists
People of Efik descent
20th-century Nigerian politicians
Nigerian women's rights activists
Igbo activists
20th-century Nigerian women politicians
20th-century Nigerian women
People from colonial Nigeria
Alumni of Dublin Institute of Technology
Nigerian suffragists