In Nigeria, houses have been built and children sent to school with money from the European sex trade
03 April 2006
"Shall we dance, tra-la-la/On a bright cloud of music/Shall we fly, tra, la-la" and so on - it wasn't the King of Siam I was hoping to invite to dance a polka but nearly as exotic. I was in Benin City in Nigeria and was on my way to meet the Omo N'Ora Erediauna of Benin Kingdom, in other words the King.
Her Excellency Mrs. Eki Igbinedion, wife of the Governor of Edo State, Lucky Igbinedion, had asked me to speak at the 3rd Edo Women's International Conference and an invitation to meet the King was one of the honours bestowed on me while I was there.
Benin City is in Southern Nigeria, east of Lagos and just north of the Delta states where there is a considerable amount of turmoil between the indigenous people who feel they have been very poorly treated by the oil companies and the Federal Government. The local people say their land is polluted, the fishing destroyed, they have little employment in the oil drilling or refineries and - on and off - they kidnap foreigners involved in the oil industry to show their frustration.
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Making it plain to all I had nothing to do with oil, be it vegetable or mineral, I arrived in a state of great excitement in this ancient city famous all over Africa and, indeed, much of the world for the wonderful cast bronze figures which are made there.
In the past, at various international outings I have met many Nigerian women. When it comes to dressing up they are always the belles of the ball with exquisite dresses in the most incredible colours, many of the fabrics batiks and as for the head-dresses, they are a challenge to any woman. The challenge, I knew, had to be met, so I brought with me a sort of feather head-dress that I had worn only once before, at the wedding of one of my sons in Sienna. Thank goodness I bought it - I know I look a bit of like one of those horses pulling ancient hearses around Dublin for fashionable funerals that have black plumes in their manes but without it, my hostess would have had to put a bit of palm tree on my head to make me look decent for the King.
We were ushered into the King's throne room before he came in. We were seated in the front row on one side of the N'Ora. Opposite us were seated rows of Palace Chiefs. These men advise the King and were dressed in white robes with coral beads around their necks. (I have a very nice coral necklace myself but was quite glad I wasn't wearing it case there was some subtle significance about the shape, colour, length etc of one's necklace and I would have upset protocol.) There I sat in my silk suit, pearls and plumes, ankles neatly crossed, admiring everything from the marvellous bronze tiger on one side of the throne to the many swords and other warlike implements on the other.
Her Excellency told me there was no chance of a polka, the King does not even shake hands. When he came in, in his white robes and head-dress and the obligatory coral necklace, it was impressive to see the obediences he received from all those in the room. As the daughter of a republic I couldn't do too much curtseying, or indeed even bowing in view of the fact that my plumes would have fallen off. I envied all the ladies with me who had such steady head-dresses!
The King is a Cambridge graduate, aged 82 years. He was extremely knowledgeable about Ireland - he said he was glad we'd stopped fighting. I gave him a piece of cut glass from Cork, my birthplace, passing it to him by way of the Court Chamberlain and offered him lunch in Leinster House if he ever dropped in on Ireland. (Well, who knows? George W. is coming here all the time or at least to Shannon.)
After meeting the King we went off to meet his wives or rather some of his wives. The chief wife was a charming woman with whom we had some conversation about the Edo Women's meeting. She seemed so knowledgeable and interested that I wondered why she wasn't coming but I was told that the wives never leave the harem. I don't know if this is true. I met three other wives, too but when I asked how many wives the King had, no one knew.
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If the King meets a woman he would like to have as his wife he scatters powdered white chalk on her feet and she has to accept his offer. I kept my toes well tucked in because, while the King seemed very nice, I wouldn't like to spend the rest of my life living in a harem longing for old Ireland and the folks at home.
Feathers still in place we went off to the conference. It was very well organised with entertaining dancers and singers and a very impressive, mainly female, audience. After I spoke, a just-retired Supreme Court judge responded to my speech and then a local Professor of Obstetrics spoke. The topic of his speech was "A pregnancy is never called normal until it is over". He seemed to have personally delivered the children of all the women on the platform and most of those in the audience and these ladies doted on him. One after the other got up to give details of their deliveries and what he meant to them. All attention was gone from my plumed head and I was able to sit there happily eating little deep-fried doughnuts and drinking fruit juice. (The Professor was such a nice man he organised a visit for me the next day to a maternity clinic where hypertension was a dreadful problem - I mean 220/170!)
Her Excellency's big project is to help many of the Nigerian girls who have gone to Europe - usually trafficked - to return home. Amazingly, when she started this initiative some five years ago she had a good deal of opposition because some parents were delighted to get remittances from their daughters in Europe and didn't want to ask how they earned the money - or perhaps they just did not want to know. Houses were built, younger siblings sent to school with money from the sex industry.
Mrs. Igbinedion, described to me as "a rare human being" by one person, has set up centres for these girls to learn skills such as hairdressing, manicuring, pedicuring and cooking and all seemed to become computer literate. I was taken to one of these skills centres the next day and asked to give graduation certificates to some of the girls who had completed courses satisfactorily. I left the plumes at home and I felt so under dressed with all the other ladies in even bigger head-dresses than the day before, that I thought of chasing one of the many cockerels that were around the place to get a few tail feathers even if it looked as though I had a feather fetish and was ushered out of the area!
Senator Mary Henry, MD
