Abstract:
In recent times, a good number of scholars have unanimously pointed to the loss of the traditional Igbo egalitarian political institutions, which accorded women a more integral profile in pre-colonial Nigeria than they have now. This indicates that the silencing of women's voice and limiting of their exercise of leadership, as observed in many Igbo communities within and outside Nigeria today, are not intrinsic to primal Igbo culture. They are, rather, an aftermath of the introduction of medieval Western Christian notions of women's inferiority into Nigeria by the British colonizers, in collaboration with their Christian missionary allies and the Nigerian male elite class that was favoured by the change. Of particular interest are the works of two women—Nigerian (Ijaw) political scientist Toboulayefa Agara-Houessou-Adin and Judith Van Allen, Senior Fellow at the Institute for …
