When my dear friend, Professor Philip Efiong, told me on May 21  that his mother Josephine had just passed away aged 88, I was consumed with sadness and regrets…not just because we had lost a wonderful mother and sweet auntie, but because we had lost yet another Biafran leader. And soon, there will be none left.

Mrs Efiong was the widow of Major-General Philip Efiong, the first Vice President and second President of the Republic of Biafra.

When just wars happen, it is customary to focus only on the brave men who risk their lives on battlefields or play key supportive roles.

What we often forget is that the wives of these great men are, nine times out of ten, also leaders in their own right – and heroic by any standards – because they fully commit to the struggle in question, emotionally sustain and advise their stressed husbands, participate in the war effort by doing things like organising food for troops or refugees, keep their families afloat under extremely difficult circumstances and make huge (and usually unnoticed) sacrifices. 

Mrs Efiong and my mother Anne Kogbara (who died last year) fitted into this Super-Spouse and Lady Warrior category. And I so wish that I had interviewed them before they went to meet their Maker because a book about their experiences – and the experiences of other women like them – would have been absolutely fascinating.  

They were very intelligent, wise and empathetic; and they knew so much and saw so much. Their insights would have enabled the general public to better understand the complicated big men they stood by through thick and thin…and their husbands’ famous superior, Ojukwu, whom they met on numerous occasions. 

Auntie Josphine and my mother could, in a nutshell, have taught us a lot about that traumatic phase in Nigerian history. But history is, as a general rule, written from a male perspective. And journalists and biographers almost always concentrate on the men who ran the show…rather than on the women who helped them behind the scenes.

Josephine Philip Efiong (nee Abbott) was born in 1935 to a British father and Igbo mother.  She attended St Theresa’s Primary School in Zaria and, later, the Teacher Training College in Kaduna from where she earned a Teaching Certificate. She furthered her education at the Farnborough College of Technology in the United Kingdom, where she studied Art Design and Fashion.

She was teaching in Zaria when she met her beloved husband in 1956. Little did she know the crucial role she would have to play a decade later when all hell broke loose and Biafra became an international cause celebre.

She became the soft power behind the Major General’s throne and the embodiment of virtue, grace and strength under pressure.

Family members and friends remember Mrs. Efiong’s passion for embracing and celebrating cultural diversity. In addition to English, she spoke Igbo, Hausa, Ibibio, pidgin, Annang and Yoruba.

I remember her being a warm and tolerant presence during my youth. She was a humanitarian by nature and so very sweet to us whenever my siblings and I showed up to hang out with her children.   

She was a matriarch par excellence who kept the home fires burning. She produced successful children and will be sorely missed.     

Condolences have flowed from many different directions, including the  Pan Ndigbo socio-political organisation, Ala-Igbo Development Foundation, ADF, and the Centre for Memories – Ncheta Ndigbo.

Auntie Josephine is survived by her sister and seven children, having lost her first son Valentine in 2022. She has also left behind several grieving grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Today, she will be buried in St Vincent De Paul Catholic church in her husband’s state, in Ikot Ekpene to be precise. As we celebrate her life, we pray that she rests in perfect peace in the bosom of the Almighty.

Let me share my favourite poem about death with Vanguard readers. It was read at my mother’s funeral; and I want to add it to my humble tribute to Auntie Josephine…to console Philip and the many others who loved her:

What Is Dying by Bishop Brent

I am standing upon the shore, a ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.

She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says, “there! she’s gone!”

“Gone where?” “Gone from my sight, that’s all”, she is just as large in mast and spar and hull as ever, she was when she left my side; just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of her destination.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at that moment when someone at my side says, “there!she’s gone!” there are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “here she comes!”

And that is dying.

DONU’S WORLD

I have a new YouTube channel. It’s called DONU’S WORLD.

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Today, I talk about being a divorced older woman and ask whether it makes sense to actively seek love and remarriage late in life.

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