UCHE EKWUNIFE: The Parks in the era of pièce de résistance. Part 2 By Oby Nwadiogbu

www.odogwublog.com informs that Marginalization of female folks in the society didn’t start today. Right from the day man offended his Creator through the instrumentality of subtlety of Satan, females were treated with contempt.

Our tradition made it worse than one could imagine. Consider it in all ramifications of human endeavour; ladies are regarded as sex objects, their offices start and end in the kitchen. What would you say when your mum is asked to go in the room when Visitors come to your home? She is asked to go inside and close the door when decisions are to be taken. What a humiliating scenario to female folk which God made with man with equal opportunity in life!

African culture actually encouraged such marginalization. When Colonial masters invaded us, they used it against us to exploit us. Making women to look and feel inferior before them give them a unique delight and mockery against ideal civility of human. However bad it looked like, the female folk had faith in them that “one day, they would not be judged by their feminism nor biological make up but by the content of what they were made to be by God”.

It was on this ground that the first female to rise to this fame of making impart and breaking the camel’s back in the face of their male counterpart who use and see them only as breeding agent for children was Mrs. Fela Ransomekuti; being the first woman to own and drive a car decades ago. This opened door for woman to stand to make their contribution to the society, academically, and all areas of life.

Women in Politics show double edged feelings to many people. They argue actually that it did not fit them of which I am a victim of that thought. But the truth is that they are key stakeholders in the building of the nation. Example of it was Deborah in the Bible who led Israel to war and came back victorious.

When the blacks were under slavery, they went across the globe through slave trade and anywhere they are they are subjected to ridiculous acts by their Masters. A notable woman who suffered this was Rosa Parks. She was asked to stand up and relinquish her seat to a white man because she has black accent. Hear her quote:

“People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

Today, many people are asking Hon. Uche Ekwunife to stand up from her seat and give way for men to steer the campaign to Senatorial seat in Abuja. Is it because she is old or what? What excuse could be deduced to ask her out of the seat? Another history is to be made in this regard as she is at relative the same age with Rosa who maintained her stand not to sell her right. Perhaps as the youngest Senatorial aspirant and woman for that matter; won’t she serve as the Deborah of our time?

Hon. Uche Ekwunife is the pièce de résistance. Not a joke! Her beginning was a mystery indeed or divine providence despite shortfalls here and there. God gives every man another chance to ameliorate his or her ways. There is always a voice in the wilderness asking man to prepare the way and make paths straight. She is indeed making her path straight and we must give her a chance. A time when a lot of men are dominating the arsenal of power, combining it with the “help meet” for the man would make a dynamic change. Consider again the ideas of Rosa Parks; she maintains as thus:

“I did not want to be mistreated; I did not want to be deprived of a seat that I had paid for. It was just time… there was opportunity for me to take a stand to express the way I felt about being treated in that manner. I had not planned to get arrested. I had plenty to do without having to end up in jail. But when I had to face that decision, I didn’t hesitate to do so because I felt that we had endured that too long. The more we gave in, the more we complied with that kind of treatment, the more oppressive it became.”

Who then would ask Hon. Uche Ekwunife to leave the seat which she had secured? Who would not be willing to see that Ekwunife is given the chance to lead us as the Deborah of our time? She has demonstrated her quintessential skills that would blend the Senate if elected to represent us in 2015 Senatorial election. It was Parks acts that brought about the most widely acclaimed “mother of modern day civil rights movement” which Martin Luther King Jr. championed and today we celebrate them.

Give Uche Ekwunife this chance to National House of Assembly; the Senate because it is obvious that she has every symbol to symbolize the symbolical symbolism in the world of Politics. She is the 21^st century Rosa Parks for Nigeria especially South-east! We stand in awe to say 'The Parks in the era of pièce de résistance is Hon. Uche Ekwunife!  

 Nwadiogbu is the Executive Director , Campaign Against illiteracy , low enrolment and widowhood empowerment Initiative