urges them to form political party
Cyriacus Nnaji
Chief (Mrs) Nneka Chimezie, Business woman, Real Estate Consultant and Human Rights Activist, has blasted Nigerian women over their demand for constitutional provision of mandatory 35% elective position for women.
Chimezie who is also the Chairman of an Igbo Newspaper outfit, Ekwe Kuo Amagbaa and President of Igbo Women Assembly, (IWA), was speaking to the media in her office in Lagos recently.
Chimezie also offered lasting panacea for the incessant call for special place in the electoral process by women. She called on her fellow women to form a political party that will give them the latitude to field any position of their choice.
She said “First and foremost is there any law that banned women from contesting for any elective position in Nigeria? I am sure there is no such law, that was why the Igbo women were able to organize themselves and carry out the Aba Women Riot that even chased the Whiteman away, that even made the colonial masters to leave this country, they didn’t go to their men to take permission because they have their own right to do whatever they wanted to do.
“So the women have every right to do whatever they like, now if not for the colonial masters, I can assure you that in every southeastern states, a woman must be the deputy, because that is the setting. The man is the head and the woman is the second in command, they won’t even contest it, the law is there, but when the colonial masters came, they were the ones that brought this discrimination against women. They will tell you there are certain things a woman cannot do, and the generations that took over after did not know the true law of the land, they now followed the law of the western people, otherwise, we can’t be talking about this.”
Chimezie maintained that the women should take advantage of their numerical strength to clinch whatever position they desire. “Now the women should take advantage of their number, the women should come together and bring out a candidate, they can form a political party, if other parties cannot give them chance, now even if political parties see their number and see how coordinated and organised they are, you will see some parties will invite them to take these positions. In fact, by raising this 35% demand, the men will see them as trying to challenge them, they might even make laws that will even stop them from contesting in certain positions.”
She queried the rationality of going to the National Assembly to ask for certain percentage of elective position “I think because of western influence, we don’t know what our rights are. Once they say it over there, we bring it down here and start making noise. How can you go to the National Assembly to say give us elective positions, which means we all agree that elections in Nigeria is by force, there are cabals, there are godfathers that appoint, it is no longer by what the people want. In other words, you are telling the cabals to tell the National Assembly to put it into a law, otherwise I don’t think there is any need, and that is why we organize this group, Igbo Women Assembly where we want to bring the women together so that we will use the power of number, make our demand, our healthy demand, we don’t even need to carry microphone, we will buy forms, any party that sees our number would want to relate with us, and then we will give conditions.”
Chimezie argued that there are positions that naturally belong to men and women respectively, and should not be a subject of debate. “Just like we do in Igbo land, in fact, there are naturally positions that men should occupy in politics in Igbo land, there are positions that are for women, naturally, by law, by creation. It is there, like Minister of Interior Affairs, is naturally a woman thing, those that came from Igbo land know that a Deputy is naturally a woman’s position, according to Igbo culture, even when you come to Commissioner, Commissioner for Health cannot be given to a man, Commissioner for Education, anything that pertains to life, taking care of life, is by women.”
Chimezie said Nigeria is suffering from lack of knowledge because of western influence “But because we allow these people to trick us, by removing our own brain, you know they removed our own brain and put inside their cupboard and gave us an empty brain so that we have to look at what they do before we can go anywhere. If you look at Nigeria today, we are not being productive. We don’t produce engineers, we are not creative, it is not as if God did not give us brain, but they brainwashed us to the point that we don’t even believe in our own ability, we don’t even know the right thing, whatever they do is the right thing, but what we do is the wrong thing. So I think we should go back to the basics and close the gap we created, there are a lot of gaps, we are leaping, it is not done that way, you must pass through primary one, primary two, primary three; Nigeria did not even finish primary Six, they entered university, so you are just there passing through school, and school would not pass through you, so that is the situation we find ourselves, therefore the women don’t need to go and be begging them for positions.”
Speaking on issue of foreigners who marry Nigerian women to becoming Nigerian citizens, Chief Chimezie said “No, naturally speaking, I won’t talk about Nigeria, but in Igbo land, the Igbos can live peacefully with you but they won’t admit you. If you are a stranger, you can live, but you can’t join Umunna meeting, you can’t be made a chief because they believe you are a stranger. Now we have not gotten there yet, we that are citizens, we have not managed ourselves. The Yoruba has not even accepted an Igbo man as a full Nigerian, the same with Hausa, the same with Igbo, now you want to go and import Oyibo to come and join us and become citizen.
“Yes it is good but the question is, can we manage it, have we gotten there yet? You have not even talked about our internal problems. You don’t even talk about the fact that we have not fully accepted ourselves, now you want to go and bring another person and join to the wahala, how can we manage it? Development, civilization is a gradual process, let us get there yet. The Whiteman that is giving you citizenship, they are even gaining from you, they don’t just give citizenship, there are conditions, if you enter America today, they know you enter, if they catch you, they will deport you. In Nigeria nobody knows who enter and who goes out, we have not been able to manage ourselves, how much more bringing another person,” she added.
Chimezie added “If a Nigerian woman marries a white man she automatically becomes a citizen likewise Nigerian man marries a white woman he also gets citizenship. But in Nigeria citizenship is given to you only when you marry a Nigerian man. That’s why I said Nigeria is a masculine state. Is not a must that we must do whatever they do. When you marry follow your husband and likewise when you marry wife bring her home that is how it is for us here in Nigeria and we should be proud of it. I don’t know why we want to emulate whatever they do. If care is not taken we will sheepishly follow the white people and clamour for same sex marriage. We are exhibiting too much low self-esteem and inferiority complex. Let us be proud of who we are and stop copying the white so that we can develop at our own pace.
