Akwa Ibom, Cross River women also want to be first ladies

This has made them  very bitter and agitated to the point that most say they may not give their votes to any governorship aspirants wishing to succeed governors Liyel Imoke and Godswill Akpabio of both states that don’t have wives who, too, hail from the states.When he came up as governor of Akwa Ibom State […]

This has made them  very bitter and agitated to the point that most say they may not give their votes to any governorship aspirants wishing to succeed governors Liyel Imoke and Godswill Akpabio of both states that don’t have wives who, too, hail from the states.
When he came up as governor of Akwa Ibom State in May 1999, Obong Victor Attah was not even married to a Nigerian, but one from West Indies. Though now late,  good-natured Nne-nyin Allison Attah strove to blend with Akwa Ibom locals yet everything about her stood out.
Attah’s successor, Godswill Akpabio’s wife, Mrs Uloma Akpabio is not also from Akwa Ibom State but an Igbo woman who the husband has tried to indigenise by adding ‘Ekaette’ to her name yet the local women think that both Attah and Akpabio have made them ‘inferior’!
Hear Gloria Akpan Ekpe, a fashion designer and event manager in Uyo: “Honestly, it is no longer a funny matter. What is it that women from Akwa Ibom State do not have in terms of brawn, beauty, brain, education, exposure and marital dexterity?Women from Akwa Ibom have all the qualifications to become First Lady.”
In Cross River State, Donald Duke brought with him Onari Duke, originally from Rivers State. When he left office after eight years the local women had hoped that, Onari’s successor as First Lady of the state could be one of them. But Senator Liyel Imoke disappointed them because, he, too, had been married to an Igbo lady from Enugu State, Barrister Obioma since his early life in Lagos.
When Obioma organised a fundraising at their official residence near Diamond Hill in Calabar to raise funds for women politicians during last council poll, Governor Imoke spoke of the wife: “She has been my source of inspiration; my dependable ally and supporter and a very dear friend and wife.”
Inspite of the fact that it is not the fault of these ‘foreign’ women to suddenly become First Lady, indigenous women are not too happy that one of them has yet to become a First Lady either in Akwa Ibom or Cross River State.
“We have been cheated for too long. Is it that we are not beautiful enough for our local politicians? We also want to occupy the office of First Lady”, an Efik elder, Madam Vero Archibong Effiom charged when this issue was raised.
Another woman, 50-year-old nurse, Ikwo Nelson was not happy that men from these two states seem to look outside to find life partners and wondered what could be the problem that men from other states don’t seem to see them as wife materials but sex partners.
“I know of our sisters married to men from other tribes. They are subjected to ill-treatment by both the husbands and their people”, she said.
President of National Council of Women’s Society (NCWS) in Cross River State and former commissioner, Rev Grace Ekanem did not agree with her fellow women.
“These governors you are talking about perhaps were never sure that they could become governors in life. And they might have married their women early in life before becoming governors. So what can they do about it?  Please note that marriage transcends tribe and religion. It is coincidence. It is love and providence. Our own local women should pray that one day their husbands should become governors or president some day, so that they, too, can equally become First Ladies”.
Commissioner for women Affairs in Cross River State, Mrs Edak Iwuchukwu said she did not see anything wrong at all. It is first of all a matter of love and personal decision. She said if a woman from another part of the world marries a man from a different state or country both will become one. The so-called ‘foreign’ woman will become part and parcel of the family and community she is married into.
“It doesn’t matter where a woman is from. But the important thing is her mental and attitudinal characteristics to marriage which is paramount.  
“In Cross River, we are lucky that the two First Ladies since 1999 have selflessly devoted attention to and adapted to our local way of life. They have impacted lives of indigent children and women tremendously. Mrs Onari Duke was very good to Cross River people likewise Mrs Obioma Imoke. They have established welfare programmes dedicated to empowerment and enhancing widows’ fortunes,” she said.
But two men from Cross River State see it differently. They, too, do not seem to be happy about it. And so, they have strong words why it is important for future governors to arm themselves with indigenous wives.
Although a senior legal practitioner in Cross River State, Barrister Utum Eteng said that it is anybody’s choice to marry from wherever he finds his love and no law, nobody can restrict that yet, he maintained that  it has made local politicians and contractors to frown at it.
But he cautioned that politicians should not see marrying ‘foreign’ wives as qualification to higher office.
Eteng said:  “Now, we need governors with wives who are indigenous. Women from Cross River should now occupy that office of First Lady.”
Why does he insist?  “We find a situation where most robust contracts in our state go to our in-laws from Igbo states. This is no longer a funny or sentimental issue but hard fact”, he stressed.
“When First Ladies from these two states share wrappers bought with state funds, for instance, many of such wrappers end up on the waist of people in distant places”, he said.
Agreeing with Barrister Eteng, Victor Edim, Cross River State president of civil societies coalition said Onari Duke did everything to integrate with the locals, but there was much capital flight.
“Today, Obioma Imoke is trying but urban women and her relatives benefit more than indigenes,” he said.
He emphasised that Imoke’s successor should have a ‘community-based’ wife.
“If that happens I will be most grateful because even the Bible cautions that we should marry within the confines of our immediate community. Solomon in the Bible fell because he married from a foreign land. There are many advantages in marrying women from one’s community because you will have known the past histories of the parents.”
However, one of the governorship aspirants’ wives in Akwa Ibom State, Mrs Vivian Samuel Akpan said emphatically that, that time when ‘foreign’ women acted as ‘mothers of Akwa Ibom’ are gone.
“By the special grace of God, you are looking at the next First Lady of Akwa Ibom State. I am a ‘full-blooded’ Akwa Ibom woman”, she said.