“Igwe bu ike.” (“In unity there is strength.”)
Born in Delnor Hospital in St. Charles, Illinois, I was blessed to grow up in a two-parent household. I came from humble beginnings. My parents emigrated from Nigeria to pursue higher education after the Biafran War ended in 1970. The conflict was between the nation of Nigeria and the secessionist state of Biafra, which was made up of largely of the Igbo people, the ethnic group into which I was born.
My mom grew up in the village of Umuawa-Alaocha, and my dad grew up in the village of Oloko in Abia State, which is in the southeastern part of Nigeria. Oloko was the headquarters for ten villages that constituted Oloko Clan, which is situated in the Ikwuano Local Government Area.
Names carry great significance in Igbo culture. My first name means “God’s gift” or “God’s portion.” My middle name, Kelechi, means “thank God.” And my last name means “friend.”
My siblings and I were born into a rich legacy of ministers dating back to our grandparents and great-grandparents, who were also educators, engineers, political leaders, and entrepreneurs. For example, one of my paternal great-grandmothers, Nwanyeruwa Ojim, led the November 1929 Resistance (Ogu Umunwaanyi, or Women’s War of 1929) against the British, who had colonized Nigeria in 1914. It is important to emphasize that what had been erroneously labeled the “Aba Women’s Riot” was actually a resistance and a revolution that originated in Umuobasi Compound in Oloko.
From a sociopolitical standpoint, the power to define and control the narrative in this context is noteworthy and speaks to contemporary culture wars between oppressors and the oppressed around the globe. For instance, the British characterized this resistance as a “riot,” which implied an uncontrolled, irrational action. In fact, the Women’s War was a symbolic, traditional, organized campaign galvanized to amplify grievances against a culture and politics that sought to dominate and control the Igbo way of life.
Ultimately, this revolt was led by urban and rural women, who covered more than six thousand square miles and mobilized a population of over two million people to oppose the British colonial masters’ plan to tax women through British-appointed Warrant Chief Okugo Ekoma. The corrupt so-called “warrant chiefs” were haphazardly selected by the colonial administration to help impose a culture of patriarchy as part of what was termed “indirect rule,” thus beginning the erosion of the matriarchal power of women in Igbo society.
From 1924 to 1928, British Government Divisional Officer Sir Graeme Thomson, who was stationed at the Bende Division headquarters, precipitated this resistance when he decided to tax the men in the Eastern Region of Nigeria. In 1926, a census was conducted of all the men in Oloko Clan to determine the scope of the pending taxation. At that time, in Igbo culture the idea of “counting” humans was believed to bring about death, causing the census to agitate the resistance even more. Further, Warrant Chief Okugo Ekoma knew that taxing the men would result in trouble, but he did not speak out against it.
Then in April 1928, the colonial administration imposed taxes on the Oloko men and the neighboring communities of Aba, Umuahia, Bende, Owerri, and Okigwe. As the colonial administration began to reap the benefits of the initial taxation efforts, Chief Ekoma sent an assessor named Mark Emeruwa to Oloko Clan on November 23, 1929, to conduct a census of the women, children, and domestic livestock there. He was met by my great-grandmother at her estate, and she denied him the opportunity to proceed with the assessment.
It was this valiant act of resistance that facilitated several days of protesting, after which the women were given written assurances that they would not be taxed. In this context, protesting generally involved blocking roads, chanting, dancing, and taunting the warrant chiefs. It also involved what was termed “sitting on a man” or “making war with a man,” a traditional method of removing men from power and disrupting trade in the marketplace.
Even with written documentation, the women exercised due diligence by surveying the surrounding communities for additional evidence of imposed taxation before revolting in full force. The women did not necessarily wish to overthrow the colonial rule as it was; they wanted to be consulted on the selection of governmental officials and the drafting of policies that affected their daily lives.
Over the course of twenty-nine days, the British killed or wounded hundreds of unarmed women in an attempt to maintain power. However, the sacrifices brought about meaningful measures of success in that for several years following the Women’s War, head-counting and tax collection ceased. As a parallel, I’m reminded of the Dora Milaje, the powerful all-female special forces unit in the blockbuster movie Black Panther. I’ll talk more about the movie in a subsequent chapter.