She was defeated in Irish local elections, but Benedicta Attoh is progressing in her native Nigeria, writes CATHERINE REILLY
GOVERNMENT HOUSE in Benin City, southern Nigeria, is far from the offices of Louth County Council, in Dundalk, but the former Fine Gael candidate Benedicta Attoh may be the only person in the world who appreciates just how far. The Nigerian woman, who also has Irish citizenship, contested the 2009 local elections here but is now a political adviser in an utterly different political climate.
Attoh is a senior special assistant to the governor of Edo state, where more than three million people live. Its populace and territory dwarf those of the Co Louth, but many aspects of Nigeria are king-sized compared with Ireland.
The national government’s removal of a fuel subsidy – which many citizens considered their only welfare benefit – stoked tensions. Though rich in crude oil, Nigeria is largely reliant on imported fuel because of a lack in refining capacity – itself down to political mismanagement. Following a strike across the country, President Goodluck Jonathan has announced a partial and temporary restoration of the fuel subsidy, but in some areas the social unrest mixed with religious tensions in a nation with, essentially, a Muslim north and Christian south.
Spiralling religious intolerance has promoted fears of conflict. “You see, some of these people witnessed the Nigerian civil war between 1967 and 1970, and a lot of them said, ‘This is how it started,’ ” says Attoh, on the phone from Nigeria.
She says most Nigerians “want peace to reign” and that demonstrations over the fuel-subsidy removal were essentially about challenging the political and corporate corruption that strangles Nigeria’s poverty-stricken majority. “People had to seize the opportunity to express themselves, to send a very strong message to the authorities that you cannot continue to take Nigerians for granted,” she says. “People have kept quiet for too long, and I think that’s where the problem is as well.”
Attoh’s boss is Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), an opposition party at national federal level. He is one of 36 state governors in Nigeria and is a former head of the Nigerian Labour Congress. Attoh’s role involves advising on issues relating to the hundreds of NGOs in the state, such as organising a meeting between NGOs and the governor to discuss how the fuel subsidy removal could benefit local projects and infrastructure.
She was in the Irish Labour Party from 2005 to 2007. In early 2009 she joined Fine Gael and the party soon approached her to contest the local elections under its banner. Following her defeat in those elections, she gravitated closer to Nigerian politics, having already been a member of ACN’s Irish branch.
Such opportunities seemed a distant prospect in Attoh’s early life. Now in her early 40s, she was married at the age of 15. “My family was poor; the only option available to them was to marry me into an arranged form of marriage to a very wealthy man,” she says. “They thought that would bring much-needed cash and bring an end to our poverty and suffering.” She is no longer in that marriage and says that through hard work, determination, support from family and “the grace of God” she got a degree in business education in Nigeria. She later undertook an MSc in future communications at Dundalk Institute of Technology after moving here in 2000. She has six children.
Attoh says her experience in Fine Gael was “invaluable” in Nigeria and notes a “reasonable degree” of honesty in Irish politics compared with her native country. She was disappointed with the 2009 election result, in which she got almost exactly the same number of first-preference votes with a Fine Gael ticket as when she ran as an independent in 2004. Similar regret is evident in the voice of her then running mate, Sen Jim D’Arcy, who describes his former colleague as “an extraordinarily capable lady” and acknowledges that she didn’t receive her share of the party vote. “I probably scored higher than I should have if we were to get both of us elected,” says D’Arcy. Attoh says a small number of people, including some Fine Gael supporters, were “ignorant” towards her during that campaign.
Her view on political life remains idealistic – it is a “call to serve” – and it seems certain that running for elected office in Nigeria is a consideration for Attoh, while she admits it would be especially daunting. “When I was campaigning in Ireland I was able to sleep with my two eyes closed. Unfortunately, in our political terrain it is still very much a work in progress.” She is mindful of God’s tendency to laugh at plans. “Man proposes, God disposes, that’s how we say it here,” says Attoh. One senses she understands this better than most.
