Chief Anthony Enahoro moved the historic motion for Nigeria’s independence before the Federal House of Representatives in March 1953.
That moment would never be forgotten by history.
But two months earlier, on Jan 20, 1953, Enahoro did something else powerful that nearly no one talks about.
He was in the Western House of Assembly when he said something that shook the room .
“There are no women in this House, and that is a problem.”
Picture what Nigeria was like in 1953.
Women were not allowed to sit in the regional or central Legislatures. They had no say in the laws which ruled their own life. The “Widows and Orphans Pension Bill” was considered in the Western House of Assembly and rejected with male members stating that if a woman’s children were taken care of, the mother herself was also taken care of. Women were not of the law. Chief Enahoro changed all that.
He tabled a resolution calling on the Lieutenant Governor to appoint at least one woman to the House of Assembly. Discriminatory electoral regulations meant that no women had won seats and this must no longer be tolerated, he said.
Most of his political colleagues were not happy about his motion and others laughed it out. Not all were in accord.
Husbands, uncles and nephews already represent women’s interests in the House, one politician said.
That argument was in 1953, does that sound familiar today?
But Enahoro’s motion survived. It was voted on. And it went through without a hitch.
Soon after, Governor Marshall chose Mrs Remilekun Iseoluwa Aiyedun, an Egba teacher from Abeokuta, as the first woman in Nigeria and indeed all of West Africa to sit in a regional legislature that’s what a true patroitic leader can do in the face of adversity.
One move. A man with something to say. A moment in history that altered everything for Nigerian women in politics.
But we hardly teach this in our schools. We hardly never hear about it in our history books.
This is exactly why we are here at Nigeria Untold. Did you know this side of the late Chief Anthony Eromosele Enahoro ?
About the Author
