Margaret Ekpo

Margaret Ekpo was a Nigerian women's rights 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. 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. She was born in Creek Town, Cross River State, to the family of Okoroafor Obiasulor and Inyang Eyo Aniemikwe. Through her mother, she was a member of the royal family of King Eyo Honesty II 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. She married a doctor, John Udo Ekpo, in 1938. He was from the Ibibio 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 Ireland. 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. Her 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, 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, Nnamdi Azikiwe 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. 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. She also became active in Nigeria's struggle against colonialism, joining the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons party. The party later nominated Ekpo as a special member of the influential regional House of Chiefs to represent women. After Nigeria's independence from Britain in 1960, Ekpo became an elected politician in the Eastern Regional House of Assembly. She was the first woman in Aba, and one of the few female politicians in the country, to be elected to such an office. As a politician, Ekpo continued to fight to better the economic and political situation for women, for example, by pushing for improvements to roads leading to markets. Ekpo was an elected politician until the start of the Nigerian civil war in 1967. During the war, she was detained by Biafran authorities for three years, at one point becoming quite ill for lack of adequate food. In 2001, Nigeria's then president, Olusegun Obasanjo, renamed the airport in Calabar, a city near her birthplace of Creek Town, after Ekpo as a tribute to her contribution to the advancement of the country. She died in 2006 at the age of 92.