Lifestyle

Meet The First Nigerian Woman To Have An Airport Named After Her

Published

4 years ago

Mar 18, 2021.

Samuel David

She is remembered especially for how she mobilized poor to protest for economic rights
Also the rich women to protest for their political rights
She passed away at 92 years old, in the year 2006, in Calabar.

Margaret Ekpo was born in the year 1924, in a community located inside Cross River State, the Eastern part of Nigeria.

Ekpo indefatigably protested for the independence of Nigeria. She was among the first females in Nigeria to be appointed as a politician, and kept on moving her role forward as a female leader.

Ekpo’s husband, who was a physician, started going to meetings to agitate against how the indigenous medical staffers were abused by the British colonial administrations.

In 1946, She established the Association of Market Women for the coalition of Aba women, in Nigeria, EKO HOT BLOG gathered.

Thereafter, Ekpo was appointed as a unique member to represent women at the powerful Regional House for Chiefs.

In 1960, after Nigeria got its independence from Britain, Margaret Ekpo emerged as an appointed diplomat in the Eastern Regional Assembly.

As a diplomat, Ekpo didn’t stop protesting for the improvement of the financial, and political crisis confronting women, for instance, she pushed for developments of streets that led to local markets.

She was appointed as a politician till the Civil War started in Nigerian, in the year 1967.

During the period of Civil War, the authorities of Biafra detained her for 3 years, and she became very sick because of insufficient food.

In the year 2001, the former President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, changed the name of the Calabar Airport to Margaret Ekpo, to serve as a tribute, for her participation in the development of Nigeria.

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