By Asiayei Enaibo
The earth will completely lack its existence without women. The complementing value to the totality of women is the true essence of God’s complete creation. He (God) knew the value and took the most precious soul out of man for the creation of a woman for continuation of the Earthly evolution. So, a woman is closer to God as the last of his finest achievements in creation. So when women weep in pain, the soul of God is angry with her plea and petitions.
A society governed by men creates obnoxious laws in the old tradition to deprive women without any explanatory values to the laws. Even though the most inquisitive woman will ask, there are no answers from the men to it. Yes, in antiquity, men dominantory leadership was characterised by greed, selfishness, and superiority claim over their women, communal men made laws, till date, some communities in Ijawland still practice this uncultured act in the pool of civilization where education has refined the minds of men and women in our society.
The Odimodi community is affronting the totality of the female gender. Odimodi community is far from the Crusade of gender sensitivity. Then, the women are about to adapt to the principles of JP Clark’s The Wive’s Revolt in the Odimodi community as the women can’t bear the pains of male chauvinism anymore.
As culture is dynamic in human existence, as humans progress and evolve within the space of time, changes take different shapes and dimensions. It is in this regard that the words of High Chief Government Oweizide Ekpemupolo become a pinnacle of hope and transformation within the cultural space of Ijaw spirituality where the High Chief said in his conversation, about what is regarded as Sei-agonoweri in Ijaw. Chief, in his inquisitive spiritual pathways, highlighted who created the moons, the sun, and the seasons. All these are created by God. God never created any month that is characterised by evil. All months are zodiacally significant to man.
So, under this cultural evolution, Dr. Tompolo discarded in Ijaw spirituality that there is no Sei-Agonowei within the context of time as evolution and cultural processes take different shapes and dimensions.
Father Igologolo, Aziza came to perfect the Ijaw’s Journey to the right things and make women sacred beings in Ijaw Spirituality—a religion of inclusiveness in Egbesu Deity as well as the feminine form of gods well known in Ijaw as Ibolomoboere, Ziba-Opuoru. This alone defines Dr. TOMPOLO as Jesus in another form.
Odimodi is a community in the Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State. Weeping Women share their challenges and deep pains within the cultural space of denial of their rights and hope for a reformation that could create new visions that will transcend beyond the agonies they face.
A voice that echoes runs to the creeks and waves to the crescendo that recreates another new hope for the younger generations, particularly for the women of Odimodi community, Iduwini Kingdom in Delta state. And to begin with that, JP Clark’s The Wive’s Revolt became handy to the green space of women’s voices within the Niger Delta region. It is in this regard that Asiayei Enaibo was called upon to echo the weeping voices of the women of the Odimodi community, and this is the story.
Odimodi, that oil-rich community in Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State where women have no voice, where their fishing canoes and nets are consumed by pollution, chained down and mouths tied against their existence–Which gods did this to the women?
They bear children without corresponding female benefits. When they make attempts to speak, the men crow against them with communal laws, a threat to be locked in their sacred Town Hall where they barred women from entering in issues that affect the well being of the community called the “Eluwe Ware, known as the house of their progenitor.
Odimodi is a land of many scholars and professors, but their women, sisters had no fair share of oil spillage benefits where the chronic disease birthed on their shoulders and children through polluted waters and on the gill of the fishes caught in their nets. Yes, they have to take their fate like JP Clark’s Wives Revolt to demonstrate a change for fair share and women inclusiveness in the governance of oil Companies’ compensation sharing formula.
According to Doris Ingo, in her voice, “I felt the pains of denigration, subjugation, oppression, and total denial in our fathers and mothers Land.”
The recent OIL company compensation sharing formula where men could have a share of 5 million naira, or 5 hundred thousand. women will be given five thousand naira only, and any contrary voice from them, the men rebuke them on their faces that they are women, and they don’t have a right to anything is nothing short of internal marginalization. Doris said, “These men refuse to learn from the Examples of Dr Tompolo in his sharing formula. In Tantita Security Services Nigeria Limited, men are 60 per cent, women 40 per cent, but Odimodi community men take all and intimidate us again. In Odimodi, women are disenfranchised to vote, and vie for elective positions generally is a big problem for us. Our women are being imprisoned in their land. If you go to our neighbouring communities, women are playing active community engagements as well as Chiefs and making progress in life.
“We, the women, can’t accept it anymore. I summoned this courage to talk to you to be our voice. Let the transformation of Nigeria’s leadership begin with our communities against bad leadership.”
Weep not. Oh, women of Odimodi. Yes, one wrapper tied their waist when oil companies refused to pay their company workers, their husbands. They make women protest for their benefits during oil servicing contracts. The men drive the women to their husbands’ places and ask the single girls to go and marry and say this money belongs to the men.
What sacrilege did Odimodi women, daughters commit before their forefathers to pass through a generational curse of deprivation?
I heard a cry from the creeks, a forest of women without hope that if they can’t speak through the Talking Drum, their hope is lost till eternity. Doris Ingo weeps in pain like a woman in labour, the pills of the cry echo through waves and storms: “It is time to protest against our fathers, husbands, brothers, and uncles to change their ways.
“This time, we are taking protests against our fathers, husbands, brothers, and uncles who refused to give a fair share of oil money that belonged to the land.”
“Who are women in this land?” The men asked.
Ingo replied: “We are the women who made this land fertile with children. Without women, there is no community and no nation. Nine months, men in their wombs disfigured their natural shapes, but when they come out from our wombs, they create obnoxious laws and deprive us of the right to social and communal benefits. When men lived to their end times, they buried them in the town, but when our mothers died they took them to a forest far from home, yes you can’t even do your mother’s remembrance in Odimodi. It is a taboo in this modern generation. If it is a tradition, this tradition is long overdue to be reviewed. With all the education of our men, no one has said anything to transform this broken idea like JP Clark’s poem of “Ibadan”
If Professor Enaijite E. Ojaruega heard this, the feminist would ask all the women to take the Nigerian Protest against bad governance from their community and will take advocacy tips for total reformative measures. It has to start from Odimodi.
This untold story of women’s discrimination and denigration in the Niger Delta region is what late Prof. JP Clark artistically addressed in his Play, The Wive’s Revolt and I dramatically see this play enacted in a reality show if the men in Odimodi refuse to have a fair share of the oil money coming to the town and strategically position women in the affairs of the community Executive, a time will come the daughters will stage a movement against their fathers, uncles and brothers.
And if it is a curse, the women are willing to embark on a spiritual journey to the Grand Master of Ijaw Spirituality in Oporoza, High Chief Government Oweizide Ekpemupolo to revise it with offerings so they too can benefit and have a place in the oil-rich community.
Wailing women, their voices must be heard as Eniye Ingo expressed the grief of internal marginalization within the community.
“Another major issue is the fact that women in that community don’t vote. Where decisions are made, women are not involved in meetings or forums, even on issues that affect them directly. Women are not represented in the government or in any normal town meetings that occur regularly in open town halls. When meetings are called, the town crier makes it clear that only men are invited. The decisions taken in these meetings affect both women and men, yet women have no voice. In a world that has developed to the extent we are today, it is unacceptable that women do not have a voice in their community.”
That is one issue—they are not represented in any way and they don’t have a voice.
Secondly, they don’t vote. In Chairmanship elections, women are disenfranchised. Despite the significant population of women in the community, they are rendered voiceless. Their internal voices are muted. This time, we have emerged from the depths to speak.
Another issue is that, because they don’t vote, they don’t hold elective positions. If you look at the cabinet of the Odimodi community, there are no women—not as secretary, financial secretary, PR, or any position. If this continues, there will never be a female political figure from Odimodi, regardless of their education level. Even with a PhD, they cannot hold an elective position in the community. They don’t vote, just as it was in the pre-colonial and colonial era. This has not changed.
Yet, if Odimodi is listed among civilized communities, it will claim to be one. However, in this world where development, civilization, and globalization have occurred, and women are making impacts everywhere, Odimodi still covers its women with tarpaulin. They go to school, become classmates and colleagues with women making waves, celebrate figures like Dora Akunyili and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, but stifle their own sisters. These sisters are not entitled to the community’s common wealth.
The men have so stifled their sisters and daughters that they are not given a platform to make an impact in this competitive world. In neighboring communities and ethnic groups, there is stiff competition, yet Odimodi covers its own. How far can they go in a world where numbers are power when a significant part of their population is relegated?
The sad, untold story of Odimodi Community women is a tale of pre-colonialism in the modern era, where women’s authorship in English Literature was often under male names.
Yet, nobody says anything due to the culture of silence. This evil has been normalized to the extent that women who marry into the community from outside are more relevant than the Odimodi daughters. This shows how insignificant Odimodi women are made to feel in all areas, including the common wealth, which is finally bringing this issue to a head. This final straw is about the distribution of common wealth money. These issues have been happening for too long, and there will come a time when enough is truly enough.
The pain endured over time, anguish, and deprivation have made us women speak through the media. We will bear any threatening sword that faces us. Eniye Ingo opens the book of women’s lamentations, hoping for a change for the born and unborn girl child in the Odimodi community.
If any man doubts what I have said, let them tell us the history and unravel the mystery for us to benefit as women.
It is appalling to my readers of this chronicles of the weeping Women of Odimodi to read the story from the lips of Doris Ingo, a great daughter of the land who is hopeful that the media will help to put an end to such entrenched selfishness in the sharing of golden opportunities meant for the women however hard their gender is denigrated by the fathers, brothers and uncles to take a step for changes before international communities and women advocacy groups join their voices.
Asiayei Enaibo, a cultural journalist, writes from GbaramatuVoice