Nduka Otiono: To Mother, A Garland of Honours 

Saturday 28 December 2024

TO MOTHER, A GARLAND OF HONOURS

Tribute by NDUKA OTIONO, writer and Director of the Institute of African Studies at Carleton University, who recently lost his mother, Ezinne Benedicta Uzorchikwai Otiono (1933-2024)

“Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.”

 — Proverbs 31:31.

On the day mum transited to eternal glory, she was ironically declared to have recovered enough from the last illness, such that her doctors discharged her. I saw her in a video call while she was in the car at the Specialist Hospital in Asaba, Nigeria, on her way home. I hailed her, “Mummy de Mummy,” as I fondly called her in celebration of her being a super mum. Although Mum smiled weakly, she also bore the hopeful look of someone grappling with the departure from a stifling environment where illness had held her hostage, and quietly looking forward to a comfort zone that she had lived in for decades. Like my brother Mike and Mum’s caregiver, Gift, who accompanied her on the trip from the hospital, I was optimistic that she would fully recover at home. She had enjoyed a robust health and lived for the most part with no debilitating illness, even after the Covid hospitalization. Though in her twilight years at 91, the genetic longevity in her lineage—her mother lived to over 100 and her elder sister and younger brother are nonagenarians like her—as well as her earlier defiance of death led me to believe that she still had more years to live. Mum had miraculously cheated death a few times. Three instances would suffice.

First, during the Biafran War in the mid 1990s. Mum had struggled to convince Dad that the war was upon them while they lived in Kano, and that the imminent massacre of Igbos endangered the entire family. Dad would not yield so Mum decided to flee with her children to our hometown in Midwestern Nigeria. As the story goes, not long after Mum fled, the Northern soldiers invaded the family house in Sabon Gari, Kano, looking for “Inyamiris” (a derogatory word for Igbos) – all towards the sinister goal of ethnic cleansing. Dad and his younger brother managed to escape the invaders by hiding under the bed.

Second, on Thursday, November 21, 1985, Mum was involved in a ghastly motor accident that claimed the lives of her friends and colleagues who were traveling in the same vehicle, while only her and another colleague, Mrs. Uchuno, miraculously survived. They were traveling from Ogwashi-Uku to Benin for a Home Economics conference. All Mum remembered about the auto crash was that she was praying her rosary when the accident occurred, and being a Catholic to the core, she attributed her survival to Divine Mercy. What was more, the philosophy in her middle name, Uzorchikwai, had proved potent: The path (destiny) paved by God (is a glorious one). Surviving the horrific accident deepened Mum’s faith in God and inspired her to redouble her service to the Church and community.

Third, in December 2022 at the age 89, Mum contracted Covid infection and was hospitalized for one month at the intensive isolation centre of the Federal Medical Centre, Asaba. The infection was so severe that it led to near-death situations that necessitated her receiving anointing of the sick from a priest thrice. She experienced similar near-death situations during her last hospitalization; a priest also administered anointing of the sick sacrament on her several times. In all, Mum must have been anointed more than seven times that I joked to her that she had become the proverbial cat. In fact, she seemed to have regained a burst of new life post-Covid and amazingly enjoyed over two years of great health. But then, she became more conscious of her mortality and would often project about her children getting together for her last rites. She reluctantly allowed us to celebrate her 90^th and 91^st birthday, and took more time to enjoy life, often singing her favourite hymn, William James Kirkpatrick’s “Jesus, my Saviour, is all things to me,” and dancing occasionally to Jim Reeves’ classic song “He Will” which she and dad loved so much.

Challenged by death a few more times in the last quarter of 2024, Mum did make it home after weeks of hospitalization. But as it turned out, it was as if to bid a final farewell to her beloved home and final resting place. She relapsed afterward and was rushed back to the hospital where she set forth before dawn for her final journey on November 27, 2024

Born in Ogwashi-Uku on January 2, 1933, to Mr. Benjamin Ogoegbunam Chiedu and Mrs. Maggie Ada Chiedu (nee Ibolo), the young Benedicta was relatively privileged. Her father was one of the earliest educated men in Ogwashi-Uku, and a headmaster who went on to build what has been recorded as the first “upstairs” or storey building in the town. Her mother, who lived to over 100 years and was the Ada Isi of Umudei—an honour reserved for the oldest woman in her village—was a successful businesswoman well-known for selling some of the best kolanuts in town.

Mum was educated at St. Peter’s Catholic Primary School, Ogwashi-Uku, from where she passed to the prestigious Sacred Heart College, Ubiaja, for her teacher’s training Grade III and Grade II Certificates. Mum was so brilliant that at Sacred Heart she passed the Grade II exam and so had to skip the Grade III exam. Upon graduation at a young age, she started teaching with Reverend Sisters at St. Bernadette’s Convent School, Agbor.

She married our father, a brilliant and handsome accountant, Mr. Michael Nkeolisakwu Otiono, also from Ogwashi-Uku, in 1959. They gave birth to Philomena Ozoemena (late); Anthony Nduka; Valentine Afamefuna; Fabian Chukwuazonaonyeke; and Michael Chiedu. Our parents had most of their children in Northern Nigeria where they spent their early years together. Dad worked with the United Africa Company and later Alraine Shipping Agencies Nigeria Limited and lived in the North for about 27 years. Mum taught in schools in Zaria and Kano before the civil war broke out in 1966. Then she returned to her hometown, Ogwashi-Uku, with her family. During that period, she bore her son Fabian in Ogwashi-Uku, and after the war, Michael, the youngest child.

At the end of the Biafran War, Mum retuned to Kano with her children. She taught in schools in Kano before returning finally to Ogwashi-Uku in 1974. Upon her return, she taught first at Ikelike Model Primary School, (Ogoma Primary School); the popular Abuanor Primary School, and then was appointed the Headmistress of Ngwu Primary School. During this period, she obtained an Associate Certificate in Educational Management from the University of Benin in 1975.

After serving as Headmistress, she was transferred to St. Roses Grammar School, Ogwashi-Uku, where she taught English, Home Economics, and Christian Religious Studies in the early to mid-1980s. From there she was appointed an Assistant Principal Inspector of Education at the Aniocha Local Government Area Ministry of Education, Ogwashi-Uku. She retired shortly after in 1987.

Mum’s career as an educator naturally reflected in our home while growing up. She was a strict disciplinarian who believed in the carrot-and-stick principle. She combined severe disciplinary measures with compassionate positive reinforcement and rewards for good deeds. My childhood is underscored by tough penalties for misdeeds, especially my obsession with spending precious hours playing table tennis and occasionally returning late from school.

Mum’s deep faith, spirituality, and unqualified Catholicism meant that all her boys served as altar boys in the Church. Having four boys and a girl meant that she managed a home where home chores did not adhere to stereotypical gender differentiation common in most homes of the time. It used to be said that she trained her boys like girls, and that her boys were as domesticated as girl-children, and that they respected women by beginning with respecting their only sister, Phil. It is to that training that I owe my culinary and housekeeping skills.

Mum’s career as an educator meant that studying and academic excellence were part of the family culture. My siblings and I grew up experiencing how much academic excellence mattered, and how not excelling in school was not an option, no matter the circumstance. However, the “push” never became a “shove” and our parents never insisted as was common then for their children to study this or that course.

Additionally, Mum and Dad were a generally modest and self-effacing couple who had no appetite for pomp and festivity—they never celebrated birthdays nor threw formal parties. They also hated wastage, and Mum particularly considered it a sin to waste food in a world full of less privileged, hungry people. So prudent was Mum that although she and Dad ensured we never lacked, we were forbidden from wasting resources. While Dad served the less privileged people through St Vincent de Paul Society of the Catholic Church, Mum was so meticulous that she knew how many spoonsful of milk were in a standard tin of Peak or Carnation. She taught us to take our ration whether there was anyone at the breakfast table or not—this ensured equitable sharing of not only milk, but also other common items, as the principle was extended to other scenarios in the home.

It is noteworthy that Mum and Dad cherished the idea of what I would call “unofficial adoption.” This was a system that enabled them to serve as forester parents to less privileged children whom they “adopted” and trained through school as they did their own children.

Mum’s early retirement from Civil Service at the age of 54—instead of 60—affected her deeply. Her retirement was based on the number of years of service, having started teaching quite early. Upon retirement, she tried petty trading at home—selling “Minerals” (soda drinks) and like Barack Obama’s step-grandmother, Sarah Ogwel Onyango, raising free-roaming goats for family consumption and for sale. She managed the latter enterprise until a few months before her demise when the entire pen was sold off. 

Besides these pseudo-commercial enterprises largely to keep busy than to make profit, early retirement also meant more active dedication to family, to the broader community, but even more to building a stronger Christian community. She did so by holding several key positions in the Catholic Church and creating landmarks. In recognition of her dedication to women development in Aniocha Local Government area, Mum was elected President of the National Council of Women’s Society (N.C.W.S) for the local government for five years. She was the pioneer President of the elite Otu Awele Women’s Association of Ogwashi-Uku for many years. She was particularly committed to the objectives of the foremost women’s organization founded in 1958 and “dedicated to representing women’s societies and groups across Nigeria” and “advocating for women’s rights, empowerment, and welfare, the organisation addresses crucial issues such as education, health, and political participation, providing a unified voice for Nigerian women nationwide.”

One of the milestones of her service to the Ogwashi-Uku people was her pivotal role as Chairperson of a committee that organized the golden jubilee anniversary of the coronation of Agbogidi Michael Ezenweani Izediunor, then the Obi of Ogwashi-Uku on July 10, 1984.

She also served as the Girls’ Guide Commissioner for Aniocha South Local Government Area for many years and as a member of the Juvenile Delinquent Court. She also served as a member of the Justice, Peace and Development Commission (JPDC) of lssele-Uku Diocese. Her selfless service made her a highly sought-after Matron of several societies, including Ogwashi-Uku Social Club and St. Cecilia’s Choir group.

Other honours include inaugural Vice President of St. Anthony’s Society, Issele-Uku Diocese; one of the first nine recipients of merit award conferred by the Sacred Heart Society of Issele-Uku Diocese at St John Bosco Catholic Church, Asaba, in June 2012; the only woman in the first six people to be honoured as Ambassador of Jesus Christ at Mary Immaculate Catholic Church on December 5, 2012; also honoured as an Ambassador of St. Anthony of Padua of the Issele-Uku Diocese.

In her demise at age 91, Ezinne Benedicta Uzorchikwai Otiono has left a void that her extensive legacy in the Ogwashi-Uku community and beyond would continue to underscore. As the executive committee of The Guild of St Anthony of Padua, Issele-Uku Diocese to which she belonged has written in a condolence note to our family, Mum “was not just a leader, but a shinning example of faith, dedication and love in action.” It is in recognition of her long and incredible contributions to the development of the Catholic Church and her community that His Lordship, Most Rev. (Dr.) Michael Odogwu Elue, the Bishop of Issele-Uku Diocese, has offered to preside over her funeral mass.

Mum is survived by four children—Nduka, Val, Fabian, and Mike (Jnr); many grand and great-grandchildren; daughters-in-law and a son-in-law. Her siblings also survive her—Madam Ifeoma Esenwah, 94, the current Ada Isi of Ogbe Ahor quarters; Sir Raymond Chiedu, 90; and her kid sister, Ms Lilian Chiedu, 79. We deeply mourn her transition to eternal glory together wwith members of the extended Otiono and Chiedu families, and the community at home and in the diaspora. May her soul rest in the bosom of the Lord as we lay her to rest with her garlands of honours and celebrate her inspiring legacy.

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