Margaret Ekpo

Margaret Sambu was born on July 27, 1914, in Creek Town, Cross River State. After training in domestic science in Dublin, Ireland, she returned to Aba, Abia State, where she opened a domestic science institute and entered political activism alongside her husband, Dr. John Udo Ekpo.

Appalled by colonial discrimination and police brutality, Ekpo organized the Aba Market Women's Association in the 1940s, turning the market into a formidable engine of political resistance. In 1949, following the shooting of coal miners at the Iva Valley mine in Enugu, she mobilized mass protests that shook colonial authority. In 1953, she joined the Eastern Region House of Chiefs, later winning a seat in the Eastern House of Assembly. Calabar International Airport is named in her honour.