As a historian, I find myself making illustrations from the past with the imagery that lends credence to the axiom that there are no new things happening in the world but old things happening to new people. This retrospective peep at the dimming past is not merely for the premium placed on antiquities and atavism as much as the search for eternal truths bequeathed to us by men and women who craved immortality. If you accuse me of anachronism in doing this, I will accept but I will charge you to forgive me and I will plead with you to merely extract the value of the period long gone and throw away the rest to the trash can of history. Going by this therefore, if we live worthily, we would leave reminiscences of virtuosity, gallantry, heroism, industry and such attributes that would be worthy of emulation by the future generations.
In this way, the picturesque impression I have of His Excellency, Senator Liyel Imoke and his dear wife, Mrs. Obioma Imoke, is a striking resemblance to the 15th century joint monarchy of Ferdinand V, fondly called (the catholic), and his wife Queen Isabella of Spain.
When Isabella of Castile got married to Ferdinand of Aragon, the two kingdoms became united and became the Spain as we know it today. This conjugal union in matrimony and imperial reconstruction put paid to the decay and rot brought about by ineffectual leadership as the duo pulled together their combined ingenuity to foster the growth of Spain to power and glory in Europe.
Senator Liyel Imoke and his dear wife may not be joint rulers but the symbiotic affinity between them is exemplary, yielding beneficial results in the management of the affairs of Cross River State. In the nature of symbiotic relationships, both parties derive benefits from each other from their association. In this case, the benefits have a spillover effect as the people of Cross River State are reaping the fruits of this matrimonial understanding.
I am sure it is for this reason of the understanding of the divine arrangement that the first lady brings sanity to bear in her relationship with her husband to model herself on her husband’s design and replicate his wave of thought. Doing this does not essentially deprive her of her individuality but makes her an original woman. A blessed woman is an original woman with attributes that will better her husband’s lot. It is especially so when the man is ingenious and it must take an ingenious woman to recognise her husband’s ingenuity and to drive the process of advancement alongside her husband’s efforts.
That is why her Excellency says; “My role is to complement my husband’s role as governor of Cross River State.” It is from here that her Excellency, Mrs. Obioma Liyel Imoke derives the inspiration to do what she is doing. The main plank of her initiatives is based on her project called – Partnership Opportunities for Women Empowerment Realisation (POWER).
When a man and his wife have lived together in peace with the greatest understanding no matter how differently they may be physically, their similarity in appreciation of issues would make them to eventually become so in-separable and so compatible that they could now pass for two sides of a coin. Honestly, this situation is rare and could only be achieved by the gift of philosophical mindedness and the fear of God. That was why in an overflow of emotions, the fear of God and the irresistible thoughts of the people’s well being, His Excellency, Senator Liyel Imoke was heard to have uttered these emotionally charged dictum- “the day my calling becomes a call to serve myself and not the people, may my political career come to an end.” And practicalised in his political maxim which spells the general good, His Excellency says; “My objective in governance is to take it down to those who need it most.” This tearful remonstrance could be the seminal origin for the sprouting of humanitarian consideration which Her Excellency must exploit.
A receptive and fertile minded doyenne of first ladies, that gender sensitive amazon, that heroin in the struggle for the upliftment of the vulnerable members of society (women), Her Excellency, Mrs. Obioma Liyel Imoke, must certainly become an ardent crusader of her husband’s goodwill. She therefore mounts the banner of hope, crusading with the message and the agenda for the restoration, enhancement and the provision of facilities for the less privileged especially among women and children.
These negative tendencies have so hamstrung the social, economic and political growth of women in our society that today, highly intelligible women like Obioma Imoke have begun to reject this situation for women. It is how to help overcome these artificial obstacles and move up the rung of the ladder that this woman of substance bases her theory of women emancipation. I therefore make no mistake when I refer to her as an amazon. Her warfare is not in physical arms but in ideas to conquer and reduce to the barest minimum the debilitating conditions of women and snap the barriers.
Although this is a universal concept, her starting point is Cross River State. This could only be achieved through a whole scale campaign and sensitisation using a megaphone which is aptly ensconced in these evocative words – Partnership Opportunities for Women Empowerment Realisation (POWER).
In attempting to bring this doctrine to fruition, Her Excellency is careful not to produce negative results. She herself being a product of hard discipline with an entrepreneurial spirit committed to a high degree of single-mindedness moderated by matrimonial subjugation, she abhors indolence and idle mindedness. So as much as she offers you her helping hands she expects you to use your own enterprising spirit to take off from that point to enable her shift attention to other people.
POWER therefore is about value addition and she says;
“It is a holistic way of empowering women. I believe in partnerships. What I set out to do was not to teach women new things but to help them take what they are doing to another level basically.”
Going down deeper, she creates one initiative out of another. There is also an initiative known as – Giving Life Options to Widows (GLOW). She gives the objective of GLOW as such;
“Basically, we do not just want to focus on women but this set of women who are disadvantaged just by the mere fact that their husband’s died, ostracised or stigmatised and they are not able to access funds and facilities the way other woman do. We want to make a conscious effort to get these things to them so that they can live without feeling that their lives ended when their husband’s died.”
As a woman of many parts, this does not explain the full extent of her humanitarian nature. This initiative contains more of the welfarism which is the high point and the anvil with which her husband’s governmental philosophy rotates. In this agenda, there is more economic content than humanitarian. From this welfarist disposition of Obioma, there is a cascading towards her humanitarian considerations which finds full expression in rescuing abandoned babies. Meanwhile, her welfarist and economic agenda is structured for the emancipation of the less privileged.
By this, she puts money in the hands of women to strengthen their businesses by making it easy for them to access finance through micro credit schemes. Since the inception of POWER, many women who benefited from this programme have experienced so much revival in their business in Cross River State, that it has become a clarion call across the country.
In politics, she is an ardent crusader for the realisation of Affirmative Action Agenda by which women are seeking to have more recognition in politics by being given more room in elective and appointive positions in government. These efforts are having so much break through already in Cross River State because of her husband’s inclination towards it. So far, Cross River State is one of the states that have given the highest recognition to women in an attempt to achieve this Affirmative Agenda.
May the women of Cross River State rise and give kudos to Her Excellency for this fight on their behalf. In the last local government counsellorship and chairman primaries each ward produced three female counselor candidates while each senatorial district produced one woman chairmanship candidate. The promise that this arrangement holds for the women in the state is that through the efforts of Her Excellency blessed by the fact that her husband Senator Liyel Imoke is very amenable to positive change, the agitation of the women in a few years time would yield such positive results that Cross River may produce the first female Executive Governor in Nigeria. Her Excellency has commended her husband Senator Imoke for having provided the enabling environment and the needed support to drive her projects. That is why the title – Two Sides of a Coin, became appropriate as their successes have been complementing each other. And when the house is not divided against itself, it will stand. Thank their Excellencies for another lesson learnt from their great souls.
