Igbo Women In Pre-Colonial Nigeria

In the last months of 1929, tens of thousands of Igbo women from Calabar, Owerri and other provinces in southeastern Nigeria traveled to the town of Olonko to protest and lead “a war” against the British colonizers who implemented an alien system of government and whom they accused of excluded them from their role in the political systems of the new government. The women also protested to amend their hardships by the colonizers. The protests were fairly symbolic and ritualistic in notion, but on a few occasions the women violently clashed with the colonial officers which ultimately led to casualties. This event is known as the Women’s War, per Igbo history and the Aba Women’s Riots, by British colonial records. In pre-colonial Nigeria, women had had a significant role in the social, economic and political organizations of Igboland.
When the British enforced a new political system, they paid little attention to the traditional power distribution which altered the positions and roles of the Nigerian women. The Women’s War is one of the most significant events in African-European relations in the colonial time period because of its anti-colonial and feminist discourse. This was the first incident of its kind in any other Colonial Nigerian colony as it was such a serious challenge to British rule and authority. In this essay I argue that the Igbo Women’ War represents an anti-colonial political resistance and the rejection of a new government. Colonialism removed Igbo women from their involvement and influence in their traditional social, economic and especially, political roles but in exchange did not include them in the new political systems and deemed them