ANAMBRA FEMALE GOVERNORSHIP ASPIRANTS AND SOCIAL MORES

Anambra State is one of the states that make up the Southeast geopolitical zone. The Southeast, which lies in the tropical rainforest area, is chiefly peopled by the Igbo people.

As the Southeast area of Nigeria suffered colonialism, so did the rest of Nigeria; however, colonialism failed to obliterate the Igbo people’s culture. So, now, the Igbo people’s ways of doing things are a brew of western lifestyle and African traditional practices. This brew has entrenched patriarchy in the Southeast area of Nigeria, the homeland of the Igbo people.

For example, in the traditional Igbo society, the man is regarded as the head of the family. He imposes his decisions and will on his immediate nuclear family. And if his wife has a dissenting or contrary view, it is perceived as impertinence. However, the embrace as well as the acquisition of western education by a great number of women in Nigeria has shaken the root of patriarchy in our country.

But patriarchy is still alive and kicking in Igbo land. There are many instances or examples that prove that patriarchy exists in Igbo land. In the Southeast of Nigeria, inheritance of properties by children of a deceased man is patrilineal rather than matrilineal. And, in spite of the Nigeria’s apex court ruling that female children are as entitled to inheriting their father’s properties and belongings as the male children, the patrilineal way of inheritance still subsists there.

More so, in Igbo land, we have the provincial mindset and perception that women are like chattel, which can be sold off to the highest bidder. Consequently, based on our wrong assumption and misconception of women, we show utter contempt and disdain for ladies on the shelf. Middle-aged spinsters or old maids are believed to be under ancestral curse, which is responsible for their long spinsterhood. We feel, albeit wrongly, that every lady must get married to a man, and bring herself under the authority and subjection of her husband. So, marriage in Igbo land has remained a tool for entrenching patriarchy in today’s Igbo land.

Again, the Christian religion to which almost every Igbo person subscribes endorses patriarchy. The Bible, which is the holy book of Christians, contains innumerable scriptural passages, which are explicitly supportive of patriarchy. Like Christianity, other Abrahamic religious faiths are explicitly supportive of patriarchy, too. So, you can see that the forces and factors that cause the deepening and blossoming of patriarchy here are deep-seated.

So, not unexpectedly, the men outnumber the women in many undertakings and professions but teaching and the civil service. Teachers and civil servants’ remunerations, we all know, are paltry, meager, and discouraging.

In the area of political leadership, women are few and far between. They can be counted on the finger-tips, which necessitated the enunciation, formulation, and implementation of the 35% affirmative action to guarantee women places in both elective and appointive political positions in our country. But we have female political gladiators, who had won legislative elections to become members of states’ assemblies and the National Assembly. But they are disproportionate in number when compared to the number of men in both states’ assemblies and National Assembly.
More so, to see a female governor in Nigeria is a rarity, now, although few had become governors of their states by political default, and not by securing thumping governorship victories at the polls. In Anambra State, we still remember the circumstances that threw up Dame Virgy Etiaba as the governor of Anambra State.

Now, the next Anambra State governorship election is getting nearer with the passage of time. And not a few people, including tested and experienced female politicians, had thrown their hats into the ring. A lot of Anambra natives, including highly educated women, are wont to say that Anambra is not ready for a female governor; that women are the weaker sex; that the leadership of a state is meant for men.

We are still trapped in the provincial cocoon of cultural conservatism and seized with atavistic mindset that a woman cannot become a governor in Anambra State. But Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has become the Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and Chimamanda Adichie, a globally recognized novelist, is already in the running to become a Nobel laureate for Literature someday. The successes of the aforementioned women should embolden the ilk of Uche Ekwunife and Chidi Onyemelukwue to strive hard and break the political glass ceiling.

Chiedu Uche Okoye,

Uruowulu – Obosi,

Anambra State