Catherine Obianuju Acholonu facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Catherine Obianuju Acholonu
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| Born | 26 October 1951 |
| Died | 18 March 2014 (aged 62) |
| Alma mater | University of Düsseldorf |
Catherine Obianuju Acholonu (26 October 1951 – 18 March 2014) was a Nigerian author, researcher and political activist. She served as the Senior Special Adviser (SSA) to President Olusegun Obasanjo on Arts and Culture and was a founder-member of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA).
Early life, marriage and education
Catherine Acholonu was born in an affluent Catholic Igbo family to Chief Lazarus Emejuru Olumba and Josephine Olumba, at Umuokwara Village, in the town of Orlu, Imo State, southeastern region of Nigeria. She was the eldest of four children. She completed her primary and secondary education in The Holy Rosary School, before being married off at the age of 17 to Brendan Douglas Acholonu, a surgeon from the same clan, who was then-settled in Germany. Catherine was subsequently enrolled at the University of Düsseldorf as a student of English, American literature, and Germanic linguistics in 1974, from where she post-graduated in 1977. In 1982, she obtained her PhD in Igbo Studies, thus becoming the first African Woman to earn both Masters' and PhD from Dusseldorf. She went on to attend her first conference at the Ibadan conference on Pan Africanism, next year, and presented four papers.
Career
Academia
Acholonu taught at the English Department of Alvan Ikoku Federal College of Education, Owerri since 1978, and had authored over 16 books.
In 1982, she established AFA: A journal of Creative Writing which was the first journal concerned with African literature. In 1986 she was the only Nigerian, and one of the two Africans to participate in the United Nations Expert Group Meeting on "Women, Population and Sustainable Development: the Road to Rio, Cairo and Beijing”. In 1990, she was selected as a Fulbright Scholar by the US government (as a result of her documenting the Igbo roots of Olaudah Equiano, a famed abolitionist and slave autobiographer) and served as a visiting faculty to several private colleges. The African American Studies program was initiated in the Manhattanville College, as a result of her efforts.
She also co-founded the Catherine Acholonu Research Center to focus on historical revisionism centered on Pre-History of the African continent, in what was the first research initiative named after a Nigerian woman.
Politics
In 1992, she had unsuccessfully run for the post of Nigerian president as a candidate from National Republican Convention. During that time, her husband was the deputy-governor of Imo State from the same party.
From 1999, she served as the Senior Special Adviser (SSA) to President Olusegun Obasanjo on Arts and Culture before resigning in 2002, to contest for the Orlu senatorial district seat of Imo State as a National Democratic Party candidate and re-enter active electoral politics. However, she lost to Arthur Nzeribe.
Philosophy
Acholonu self-identified as an environmental humanist, and rejected feminism. She disagreed with the thought-schools of Alice Walker, Buchi Emecheta, Flora Nwapa and other feminists, accusing them of harboring excessive misandry and radical concepts like lesbianism squarely situated outside the boundary of African morality, while glossing over the concepts of motherhood, central to African femininity. She instead asserted that it is not gender but rather economic status that determines power hierarchies in Africa. Thus, the concept of motherism that promotes a theme of "motherhood, nature and nurture"—it advocates for a return to traditional pro-natal womanhood, and promotes conciliatory stance rather than confrontations, as to male-female cooperation. Her views have been challenged by the later generation of African feminists.
Acholonu viewed the introduction of Islam into Africa as a form of colonialism, which subverted indigenous African systems and reduced the quality of life for native women.
Death
Acholonu died on 18 March 2014, at an age of 62 from a year-long renal failure.
Honours
She was enlisted among the greatest women achievers of Nigeria by the National Council of Women Societies (NCWS) in 1997. Her works have been selected as reading material for secondary schools and universities in Nigeria, and African Studies Departments of universities across America and Europe.
