When I had my first degree, he wrote Mrs Uche Azikiwe B.Edu, to show you how he valued it. When I got master’s degree, he would write B. English (Edu… - Uche Azikiwe

My father was a Sergeant-Major in Nigeria Police and I think around that time, the rank was the highest position for Nigerians except if you had gone to secondary school. My father did not complete his primary school education, so when he joined the police force, the highest position he could be promoted to was Sergeant-Major. I grew up in the barracks and to know my father as a big man being the Sergeant-Major in charge of the whole barracks. Nobody dared come near our house. Other families were living in one room each in the barracks but we had a complex like when we were at the police barracks along Ogui Road, Enugu.

If you overlook the women and their contributions, you are going nowhere, it seems as if you have two legs and you are running with just one; you won’t go anywhere.

When I got married in 1973 and came to Nsukka with my husband, one day I came across one of my classmates in secondary school. Her name was Sharon and I asked what she was studying. The next day, I met another person and another one after that. We were all in the same class at Abakaliki. I saw them at the time I had my second child, Uwakwe, and it just occurred to me that I had to do something. These were my classmates and they weren’t brighter than me in secondary school.