This female presidential aspirant insists she’s not a feminist and we are still not over it

On Wednesday, presidential aspirant Eunice Atuejide and founder of the National Interest Party (NIP) declared on Twitter that she’s not a feminist. Which is bitterly funny, and ironic, and also feels like a reckless political subterfuge. The offensive tweet from her account (I’m dead sure she tweeted it herself) was in reaction to a grainy clip of an all-male presidential aspirant gathering, with the men solemnly swearing “We have all agreed to work together” in a room.

With no visible female representation in the meeting, Atuejide was understandably peeved. But why did she have to drag feminism in her silly caption game?

Of course, it won’t be social media if there were no reactions from feminist and non-feminist camps. But even more annoying was Atuejide reiterating that she is not a feminist in her subsequent tweets that should have acted as damage control. A retraction. An apology. Anything. Last month, Punch headlined a story: “Mother of Five Declares for Presidential Bid, Says Nepotism Hindering Nigeria.”

That mother is Eunice Atuejide, who, on a pinned tweet on Twitter, rolls out outstanding qualifications and multilingual proficiency before adding that she’s a “Mum of Five” and a “Wife.” Keenly enough, she didn’t do a Hillary Clinton, whose Twitter bio did the reverse and caused a controversy. But a foremost press outlet like Punch reduced Atuejide to a domestic skillset and I vividly remember feminists fighting on her behalf, and dragging Punch from pole to pole for using feminism (or lack thereof) as clickbait.

Atuejide disidentifying from feminism, and going further to parrot the misconceptions about the movement shows the tone-deafness of her gender politics. Politically, she has single-handedly alienated a potential support base that could facilitate her 2019 presidential ambitions. And it’s not a good look.

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