Former Education Minister, Oby Ezekwesili, says she is pleased with her encounter with Senator Onyekachi Nwebonyi at a Senate Committee panel on Tuesday, saying the episode exposed what women face in a patriarchal society.
Ezekwesili stated this on Channels Television on Wednesday, March 26, when she narrated her side of the drama that unfolded when the panel began sitting over the sexual harassment allegations involving suspended Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan of Kogi Central and Senate President Godswill Akpabio.
In her words
“In this society, there is a historic attitude to voice; not just the voice of women but those who say that they do not agree with a situation or who like me are persistent in demanding public accountability from those that lead an institution that belongs to the society.
It is a historic more or less function. And so, that attitude pervades the way our lawmakers are behaving. I was actually very pleased with what happened yesterday because now it is in the public domain what women endure in many instances, and the rest of society may know little about it but has not focused on it.”
On Tuesday, March 25, tempers flared at the panel sitting in Abuja when Ezekwesili and counsel for Akpoti-Uduaghan, Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, represented the Kogi lawmaker before the Senate committee.
Just as the sitting began, a verbal clash ensued between the male lawmaker from Ebonyi North Senatorial District and Ezekwesili. The shouting match resorted to unprintable name-calling and gender-shaming.