In mid twentieth century Eastern Nigeria, women formed the backbone of everyday economic life. They traded food, negotiated prices, organised transport, sustained households, and built dense networks of cooperation through market associations. Yet political power sat elsewhere. Parties, councils, and institutions described as traditional authority were almost entirely controlled by men.
Margaret Ekpo emerged from this contradiction. She understood that economic organisation already contained political force. If women could organise markets, defend their livelihoods, and mobilise collectively to survive, they could also mobilise to influence public decisions. Ekpo did not begin her political journey in legislative chambers. She began where women already gathered, in markets, associations, and town meetings. From there, she pushed steadily into spaces that had never been designed to include her.
Aba, where the market already functioned like a parliament
Ekpo’s influence grew in Aba, a commercial city whose markets linked rural producers to urban consumers across Eastern Nigeria. In such places, women’s associations were not informal clubs. They regulated trade, enforced collective decisions, and provided mutual support in times of crisis.
Ekpo encouraged women to see these associations as political instruments. She travelled, spoke publicly, and built disciplined structures that could act together. In 1954, she founded the Aba Township Women’s Association, which quickly became a centre for organising women’s economic and civic interests. Membership meant more than solidarity. It meant shared purpose and coordinated action.
EXPLORE: Nigerian Civil War
During periods of scarcity and economic pressure, Ekpo tied political participation to practical benefits. Women joined because they saw results. This grounded approach helped her build a loyal and expanding base that extended beyond Aba into surrounding communities.
Turning everyday struggles into public demands
Ekpo refused to separate women’s daily realities from politics. Transport routes, market access, pricing controls, taxation, and representation were not private concerns. They determined whether families could eat and whether communities could function.
By framing these issues as matters of governance, Ekpo made it difficult for officials to dismiss women’s voices. Her organising translated lived experience into collective demands. This gave her credibility among women and leverage with political actors who could no longer ignore the scale of mobilisation she commanded.
Entering party politics and reshaping it from within
Ekpo became closely associated with the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons, one of the most influential political parties in Eastern Nigeria during the final years of colonial rule. She did not accept a symbolic role. She pressed women into party structures, councils, committees, and campaigns.
Her standing rose further when she was appointed in 1957 to the Aba Urban District Council caretaker committee. This marked a shift. Ekpo was no longer only organising outside the system. She was participating directly in governance.
Her power within party politics rested on organisation. Women’s associations could mobilise crowds, canvass voters, and influence outcomes. Once party leaders understood this, women could no longer be treated as background supporters. Ekpo’s work helped force a renegotiation of women’s place in political life.
Walking into the Eastern House of Chiefs
In January 1959, Ekpo took one of her most significant steps when she was appointed as a Special Member of the Eastern House of Chiefs. The institution was conservative and male dominated, shaped by colonial administration and selective interpretations of tradition. Women were almost entirely excluded.
Ekpo entered the House alongside Janet Mokelu, and their presence challenged assumptions about authority. She understood the hostility of the space and navigated it carefully, balancing firmness with strategy. Her participation showed that exclusion was not an inevitable cultural rule but a political decision that could be challenged.
Inside the House, Ekpo spoke consistently about inclusion, education, and women’s representation in public institutions. Her presence alone expanded the boundaries of who could be seen as a legitimate political actor.
The 1961 election, from appointment to mandate
Appointment did not satisfy Ekpo’s ambitions. She continued organising, campaigning, and strengthening her political base. In 1961, she contested elections for the Eastern Regional House of Assembly representing Aba Urban North and won.
This victory marked a turning point. It demonstrated that women’s grassroots organisation could translate into electoral success, even within systems designed to favour male candidates.
As a legislator, Ekpo remained focused on the realities she knew best. She raised issues affecting women traders and farmers, transport access, and participation in decision making bodies. Her legislative priorities reflected the world she came from and the people who placed her in office.
Why her strategy succeeded
Ekpo’s success followed a clear pattern.
She organised before demanding recognition, building collective strength rather than waiting for permission.
She treated economic life as political life, insisting that markets, roads, and livelihoods were central to governance.
She entered elite institutions without abandoning her base, using formal power to amplify grassroots voices rather than replace them.
Through this approach, she helped make women’s political participation harder to deny and easier to imagine.
READ MORE: Ancient & Pre-Colonial Nigeria
A name that endures
In November 2001, Calabar International Airport was renamed Margaret Ekpo International Airport by President Olusegun Obasanjo. The renaming matters because public spaces shape collective memory. Attaching her name to a major gateway affirms that Nigeria’s political history includes women who forced open doors and reshaped public life.
Margaret Ekpo’s legacy is not limited to titles or offices. It lies in the method she left behind, organise collectively, connect daily life to policy, insist on representation, and keep insisting.
Author’s Note
Power grows where people already stand, and Margaret Ekpo’s life makes this unmistakably clear. Her political influence did not begin in formal chambers or elite circles, but in ordinary spaces, markets, women’s associations, and community gatherings where people already organised to survive. She understood that inclusion is not granted by permission, but built through persistence. Rather than waiting to be invited into power, she created a force strong enough that institutions were compelled to recognise it. Even after entering the highest levels of public life, Ekpo never detached herself from the people whose daily struggles shaped her politics. By carrying their concerns forward with her, she ensured that her leadership was not symbolic, but lasting, and that her impact endured beyond her own time.
References
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History, “Ekpo, Margaret”, 2020.
Al Jazeera, “Remembering Margaret Ekpo and the Enugu strike massacre”, 12 December 2020.
allAfrica, “Obasanjo Renames Calabar Airport After Margaret Ekpo”, 24 November 2001.
