“ Oh Lord I have run the race, I have fought the good fight of faith, when it is my time, dear Lord rest my soul in your bosom” —Pauline Abonuyo. How best will one be remembered and how well will a determined mother be remembered? When you take a cursory look on her Offsprings and how they live their lives and contribute to societal development towards building a virile egalitarian society, truly you will be amazed of the wonderful contributions for building a quality family for the general good of the public as late madam Pauline Abonuyo’s lifetime struggle epitomized.
Late Madam Pauline Abonuyo was your everyday mother figure whose love for family and society outweighed any known earthly pleasure as she devoted her entire life career in teaching and learning and empowering less privileged members of the society. She spent much time brooding and nurturing her six biological children and many school children across her areas of official postings as School teacher, Church Counsellor and Community Women Leader.
Born in Port Harcourt now Rivers State on 6th of August 1937 to the late Mr. and Mrs. Dominic Uduji Okeakwa of Umuduruofor, Oteke Ekitiafor village in Abba town in Nwangele Local Government Area of Imo state.
Her legacies in human capital development with her late husband who was also a school Teacher par excellence left behind well trained professionals as children with intellectual propensity and a sense of community service and tenacity to always stand for what is right for public good instead of indulging in self-aggrandizement a quality no other human can imbibe to her offspring but late madam Pauline Abonuyo, left this earth as a fulfilled woman, whose humanitarian services especially during the 1967-1970 Nigerian /Biafran civil war when she volunteered to work for Catholic’s Caritas World organization feeding and taking care of the wellbeing of malnourished children, set her above any other social worker of her era.
In her own words she said “my husband and I made education our priority by seeing that all our children were educated to graduate level.” And her children Engineer Kelechi Abonuyo and her daughter Lilian Ngozi Abonuyo Ph.D, are all well-educated and making waves in the society today. This therefore led to her determination in transferring knowledge through teaching which knew no bounds as she wrote her own life story before she transited which she titled “She Stoops To Conquer”. Her daughter Lilian Ngozi Abonuyo PhD in her tribute wrote “My mum came with class and value but with humility to Amueje , Iho-Dimeze, a rather sleepy village with, at best, teachers as the most educated. My dad, a dashing young man and eligible bachelor was one of those few educated men in Iho-Dimeze at that time and could not fail to seize the opportunity to do himself some good and proposed to this young woman of purpose. It was during the Sporting event and there were two young men who were doing all their best to edge her school out from winning the trophy. She stood up to them and put up a fight. In the cause of the argument, my father, late M.O Abonuyo, found her intelligence, confidence and dexterity irresistible, and so that interaction culminated into a union in August 14, 1966.
“In one of those mother-daughter moments, I had said to my mum, “mum, you are tough but you have a good marriage, how do you do it?” She simply said to me, “she stoops to conquer.” Hardly did I know this was the title of a comedy written by Oliver Goldsmith in 1773. She began to dissect and analyse the comedy with so much passion and ease that one would think she was the playwright. Mum loved and was good in Literature and Geography. No wonder, while on a trip from London to Birmingham, while Kelechi was showing us places, when we got to the London Eye, hardly had we crossed the London Bridge, mum said gushed “This is River Thames” ! something she studied over fifty years back and we the younger ones never knew it.
Mum’s memory was second to none. Uptil her death, mum knew her account numbers and her children’s phone numbers off hand. Mum attended Holy Rosary School Port Harcourt (now occupied by Harbor Road Girls’ Secondary School) for her primary education and then moved to the prestigious Holy Rosary College Umuna Orlu, a Teachers’ Training College. At this time, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Aba, Calabar and Owerri were under East-Central State, so it was natural that she could have applied to a school down home.
“She stoops to conquer” is exactly how I would like to describe my mum, her marriage, her Christian life, her career and her family life. At the time she went to school, was when a student’s handwriting would tell exactly what school one went to (Rev. Prof. Mosy Madugba, 2014). And my dad would proudly describe hers as Holy Rosary hand writing. At this time the Catholic Church of Nigeria sought to breed young women in different vocations and professions who would help to empower other women in the society, and Bishop Mark Unegbu, a Bishop Emeritus of Owerri Catholic Diocese was the Director of Schools at that time (TPL Sir Donatus Obialo, Nov. 2023). She was one of those few women who were groomed to head Primary Schools through a special training program. So instead of going back to Port Harcourt, she was posted to the rural areas in Orlu/Owerri Diocese.
“Mum immersed herself in the village life and took the mantle of leadership in St. Mary’s Catholic Church Iho, Iho- Dimeze as a whole and to a large extent, Ikeduru Local Government Area. Mum went about her calling with all diligence, vigour, temerity and fervor. Dee Lucy Njoku, (March 16, 2024) who should be in her mid-seventy and proudly calls herself ‘Madam’s Backsman’, told me of how my mummy was handed the responsibility of forming St.Mary League Girls on her wedding day, by Rev. Father Reynolds (the last Irish Priest in legacy Atta Parish). Mum led the women from the onset of her marriage till 1992 when her children, upon seeing that politics had crept into our local church, persuaded her to step down. Yet mummy led from behind the curtains, in that there was no major decision within St. Mary’s Christian Women Organisation, CWO without her counsel or contribution. She wielded so much influence and power that even amongst the men folk, her contributions were sought after. We naturally got used to being woken up early in the morning by people who came with one case or the other in the community. In 1998, she resurfaced again as the President of the CWO.
When Ola grew up, she one day said, “It is like everybody knows grandma, each time we go to the village, and I get a chance to go and buy snacks, someone will point at me and say “Ka wu nwa madam Abonuyo”
“My mummy carried on with the education campaign and told those that cared to listen: ‘go to school, go to school’. This most times fell on deaf ears. A certain man whom she found brilliant at school and tried to persuade him to send the boy to secondary school, told her outrightly: “My Mrs., what we need is people”. This man thereafter got his son a wife!
Those days were very difficult times in Iho, due to lack of water. People went far away to get drinking water, sometimes water vendors came around in water tankers. Those who couldn’t afford these options resorted to using ground water from pits (omii) and later, from borrow-pit. She taught housewives how to cope with it. One of the ways was what we jocularly called “the water treatment plant” and that was using ordinary alum to treat such water (which is likened to the coagulation and sedimentation stage of any water treatment program).
She did not stop there; it can practically be said that my mum eradicated the jigger parasite in Amueje, Iho. I watched as a little girl when she called children, who were plagued with this parasite, to our house, and in our corridor, she compelled them to excavate the parasites from the skin of their feet. Their sores were cleaned and treated with disinfectants. These went on for days and eventually almost every child was treated. That was the last I ever heard of “ntugbu”.
“In the family front, her protective and providing hands were so formidable that my dad, one day said: “Pauline, I pray I go before you, because If you go first, this family will go down”. Pauline’s life was all about sacrifices. She once told me how they needed to get back on their feet after the civil war, she went and sold a substantial quantity of her gold jewellery and deposited the money in the bank, only for it to be announced the following day that Ndi- Igbo would be left with only 20 pounds! This broke her heart but she forged ahead. In my early years in the university; mum called me into her room one day, opened an envelope; it was gold! She said it cost N500 (N5million as at today; then, Peugeot 504 SR sold for N7000!). In excitement I said, mummy, buy it! She calmly said, “No, you people need to go back to school” My school fee was N740!
“My mum was so industrious that, our large inherited land estate was maximally utilized for farming. She was popular for the bumpy harvest of her special cassava species; “nwanyiocha” and “durungwo”. She always had a large reserve of seedlings and cassava cuttings for every farming season to which indigent women were generously helped. Like the virtuous woman she was, she owned a palm tree plantation and a plantain plantation. Every minute was accounted for; either in the school, farm, or meetings.
“My mum had a way of transiting from being a public speaker, to being a Teacher, a farmer and a powerful mobilizer. I could write a book about my mum! As a young girl, I felt the impact of my mum everywhere I turned to. When I went to boarding House, my Dad met a certain parent (Late Mrs. Philomena Akor) who was mum’s classmate at Holy Rosary and whose elder brother was Dad’s classmate, lo and behold, it was only a mention of Pauline Okeakwa, and she became my school guardian. This meant I had where to spend my exeats and mid-term breaks. Yet again, when I got to the university, my first roommate (Mrs. Emelia Enyinna) was my mum’s school mate’s (Late Mrs. Philomena Emefu) daughter, whose third son happened to be Kelechi’s classmate at St Peter Claver’s Ngor Okpuala, in Ngor Okpuala Local Government Area of Imo State. During my IT days in Port Harcourt, some friends and I were having our normal rowdy lunch in a restaurant, when a certain man walked up to me, introduced himself as having worked with my mum in a certain committee in Ikeduru LGA and told me how powerful a mobilizer and a woman of integrity my mother was. This man eventually paid for all our lunch; I couldn’t be prouder!
“Mummy was my friend, my teacher, my counsellor, my mentor and my role model; she was the motivator to my doctorate, she kept saying; it’s high time! It’s high time! My mum had no favorite child but was everything to every one of us. I was amazed the day she confessed that she was not always part of most meetings she attended, but it was just to go and moderate. My dad was a blunt and undiplomatic as a-matter offact speaker. Such kind of love! At this juncture in writing this tribute, I couldn’t help my tears as I remember how quickly, she would dust herself off her chores and sit on the dining table to begin copying quiz questions from the 4.30pm Radio School Quiz program. This was Dad’s idea but he gave her the assignment amidst her very busy schedule because she was a fast writer. This was the secret to our doing well in our exams and going to the best of schools!
“In all of these I could yet again describe my mum as a missionary woman. She continued to serve God in the church and man in the community. Yes, a woman on a mission she was! and as such her life was punctuated with high moments as well as low moments, for which she kept her head high above water with a stiff lip; she neither faltered nor was she cowed. That is why I called her “My Elegant Stallion”, “The Amazon from Abba” and “My father’s Helpmeet”.
“Mum, you taught me how to be a woman with your words: “A woman is seen and not heard”, “You are a woman; to be wooed by a man and not be captured by him”. Thank you for all your sacrifices, great sacrifices indeed! It is comforting to know that you knew what time it was, you prepared well and prayed till your last breath. Oh such glorious passage in the presence of God! It is hard to say good night but it is a glorious morning! I am grateful to God”. – Dr. Lilian Ngozi Abonuyo.
In all fairness, late Madam Pauline Abonuyo, was a community leader whose doggedness led to women in the Iho-Dimeze, rising up to a high level of awareness thereby making meaningful contributions in community development. Her burial ceremony slated for Saturday 6th of April, 2024 eventually takes shape as celebration of an achiever and quintessential mother who lived well and educated her children well while others derived the benefits of her intellectual potential.
-Emeka Amaefula
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