I AM away in Addis Ababa, organising the 40th Anniversary of the Organisation Of African Trade Union Unity, OATUU, the umbrella organisation of African workers, which comes up on Saturday, April 13, 2013. Also, as the OATUU Secretary General, I am to attend the African Union Labour and Social Affairs Commission meeting, the tripartite biennial conference that brings together African Labour Ministers, employers and trade unions.

Then my mobile rings: My dear mother, Madam Ebibo Lakemfa, passed away in Port Harcourt, Nigeria at 8pm on Tuesday April 3, 2013. Before leaving my Accra, Ghana base, I had called her in Nigeria. She was okay; in any case, that is what she always told me. I had come to realise that she masked her pains, and even sometimes, her ill health. So I usually go through my siblings to try  finding  out her state of health given advancing  age.

On this occasion, her main concern was her younger brother, Joseph Presidor Fakrogha who had just been discharged from the hospital. I assured her he would be alright. To now be told that I would no longer hear that voice I have always heard from childhood, is devastating. It is not that I expected that my dear mother will live forever; it is the finality of it. The irreversible nature, like a raw egg that drops from a height; how do you put it together? If life snaps, how do you re-tie it?

What is left are  sweet memories; of times past when my world took shape in her image and hands; when I watched the world from the comfort of her bosom. As a child, I recall that I thought I could get away with  anything, including beating older and far stronger relatives, provided she was around. I knew nobody would retaliate when she was around.

For many years, a priced, enlarged photograph hung from the wall of our home. It was that of a young, beautiful lady seated regally on a chair like royalty. It was the photograph my mother took on October 1, 1960 to mark Nigeria’s independence. She was heavy; and  34 days later, I made it out into the world, yelling.

Even as a child, I thought I knew her suffering; she was typical of many mothers in those days when I was growing up in Obalende, Lagos; they woke before cock crow and you never knew when they retired to bed. They were engaged in all sorts of trade and a seemingly endless race to make ends meet.  Many of us who grew up in the Obalende of the 1960s and ‘70s,  went to school due to our mothers’ sweat, and the free education programme that was still tottering then, before its final collapse. Most of our mothers had not had the opportunity  of going to school. In fact, the first time some of them entered a classroom, was when they went to register their children. But for them, their children getting educated was  like a religious obligation.

I developed my pro-women advocacy from watching our mothers struggling to ensure a better future for their families, especially we their children.  Although we had little when I was a kid, my mother gave to those who were worse off, and our home was a refuge to a very long line of kinsmen some of who stayed with us for many years until they could find their feet in indifferent Lagos. She also taught us to celebrate the Christian and Muslim festivals. Despite our economic condition, we came to expect  new clothes at these festivals.

I suspect that I learnt contentment, a heart for the downtrodden and  confidence from  my quiet mother who, even when her children had become better off, would make no demands believing that we are still trying to find our feet.

Her life journey is over. Her mission, accomplished. She’s gone. I will never see her again, except in dreams. I will no longer hear her voice, except her usual answer when my youngest son  repeatedly greets her “Mama ado o!”

Mr. OWEI LAKEMFA, OATUU Secretary General, wrote from Abuja.