John Oriji’s chapter in Korieh (2009) names women whose memory the movement preserved. They give a sense of the variety of the leaders: market women, spokespersons, titled chiefs and modernizers.
Nwanyeruwa of Oloko
The widow of Ojim whose quarrel with the enumerator on 18 November 1929 lit the movement. Oriji presents her as an apostle of non-violence. Women gave ten shillings per village to her and the commission called her “a name to conjure with”.
Ikonnia, Mwannedia and Nwugo
Young, eloquent women from Oloko who spoke for the crowd. They persuaded women to stay calm once the chief Okugo’s trial was promised (he was jailed for two years) and tried to stop violence elsewhere.
Mary Okezie (1906–1999)
The first Ngwa woman with a Western education, a nurse and health visitor. She wrote the only women’s memorandum to the 1930 Commission and founded the Ngwa Women’s Association in 1948.
Ihejilemebi Ibe of Umuokirika
A former head of the women’s “spy team” and a member of the war council. She collected warrant chiefs’ caps, arbitrated cases of wife-beating and dressed as a warrior. At her funeral the music reserved for titled men and warriors was played.
Ahebi Ugabe of Enugu-Ezike
Called Agamega, “the female leopard”: a member of the Native Court from 1930, carried in a hammock, and allowed to build an Omabe masquerade shrine, an exceptional honour since Omabe is normally male.
Songs also survive. Women’s war songs such as “Nzogbu, Enyimba Enyi”, “we are elephants crushing obstacles”, became a part of Igbo folklore and, Oriji notes, re-appeared as marching songs in the Biafran War.
Sources for this article
- Korieh (ed.) 2009, ch. 12 (Oriji), pp. 272–278