Gerald Oluchi Ibe

Women War Gerald Oluchi Ibe

Considered of no consequence until they redefined colonial history, the Aba Women Revolution in south east Nigeria in 1929 knocked the air off the British imperial balloon. The Road To Aba depicts that epic struggle of women in colonial Nigeria to reassert their position in a society where the conquerors and their warrant chiefs denied them any role. This story brings a fresh perspective through the eyes of a granddaughter of one of the dramatis persona in the saga that shook Britain and forced her to change her colonial policy from indirect rule to direct rule not only in Nigeria but her other colonial holdings in the early 20th century. This work, a subtle critique of the present Africanist idea of feminism that is caught up in the Eurocentric idea that African women never had any right ab-initio seeks to correct this view by re-presenting African women in long gone days in their full power and glory. Ene, the lead character, a gender activist and a granddaughter of one of the leaders of the women revolution recalls this telling story on her unhappy drive homewards, driven away from her matrimonial home by an unappreciative husband and mother in-law.