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Author ORCID Identifier

0009-0005-7127-2227

Abstract

This eponymous narrative Ọmọtẹ Ohwo Re, loosely transliterated “female is human” in Isoko, is set in Emede, Isoko kingdom, Niger Delta, Nigeria during the late 1960s to early 1970s. It explores the lived experiences of the eponymous character who is denied the opportunity to obtain Western education by Chief Ebọ, her influential father, the sitting traditional ruler. Born into a polygamous home, she is the fourth and last child of her mother; but the seventh among eleven females. None is deemed worthy of an education because of their sex. In a twist of events, she defies this institutionalized marginalization and begins a quiet revolution that eventually affirms the female worth and identity across the kingdom. From the perspective of modern realities where the African woman, especially, is expected to be in the ‘other room’ and keep silent in the face of sexual harassments and related exploitations, this contribution provides prophylactic and therapeutic resonance with some contemporary struggles of the female in other continents as well. Through its refractive lens, this narrative envisions the answer to ‘‘why are females by default deemed ‘unfit’ to occupy top executive positions both in politics and the boardroom even in ‘free’ societies as the US’’? by mainly thematizing subjugation, social justice, and revolution in this scenic memoir historicizing recontextualized analogy. The non-fictional events are weaved using naming as a symbolic trope from the Isoko worldview. Therefore, naming is deployed as an embodied narrative technique that preserves personal memory and challenges communal history of prejudice.

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