One Year Without world’s best intellectual cultural speaker, Omu Anioma, Nneoha
By Patrick Ochei
It’s been exactly one year that we lost a rare gem, a classic Amazon, a paragon of beauty and an intellectual role model to many, Obi Martha Dunkwu (Omu Anioma). She was my mother by adoption, she was my mentor and the world’s best intellectual cultural speaker I have ever known. She left us on this day one year ago and soared higher to the glorious realm.
Can I ever forget this day and its mystic pictures that I thought was a dream? It was to me a dream, but I’m yet to wake from it. On this day, the 16th day of February, 2024, I had received a call from Dr. Afam that our mother, Obi Martha Dunkwu (Omu Anioma) had left us. I had screamed like a whirlwind. How can that be? A woman I personally took to the hospital just for stooling and vomiting? The two nights she was at the hospital, we had gisted and laughed as usual. But is that how death comes easy, especially when the person involved is a strong full of life lioness?
Till this day I still quirk when I reflect on the episode of a year ago. Our relationship was too real to have been shortened this sudden. She would say, “my relationship with Pat is like the river; it does not close nor dry”. Even though I never shared how I often cry when I suddenly reflect on the fact that I may never see her again; so many others of her children like Barr. Adaeze Ezete, Dr. Kristy Ikhani and others have often shared their experiences waking up in tears.
In my encounter with Omu Martha Dunkwu, I grew so fond of her, just as she was about me. To prove that our encounter was divine, she had a lot in her kitty to accomplish in propagating Anioma Identity and Culture until she met me. Many a journalist had passed through her but she never approved of any of them so strong until she met me. That also confirmed my ceaseless dreams of a great cultural woman I always go to write about. And this was before my venturing into community newspaper publishing.
When in 2014, I presented the Anioma Man of the Year Award to her, she said at the ceremony in her palace, “I have turned down lots of awards for lack of meaning and sincere honour, but I accepted this Anioma Man of the Year from Anioma Trust, not because it is from the media, but because I have found a young man that is behind the project sincere and passionate about joining the struggle for the propagation of Anioma Identity and Culture. I think I am fulfilled, I have discovered someone to join me in selling who we are and what we have to the world. We must show who we are to the world through our Akwa Ocha, our language, our food and our hospitality. The Akwa Ocha is our traditional attire and it has a static value that the world needs to know about and appreciate it. This is what I have been preaching over the years but with little impact. Now I have you, not just as a media personality but as an Anioma community journalist with an understanding of interpreting our vision and mission for the Project Anioma”. Those were her exact words; they had been resonating in me since that encounter.
And not too long too, the eye-on-the-future Omu Martha Dunkwu discovered my senior brother and passionate Anioma born historian, Elder Emeka Esogbue. With the two of us joining forces with the Queen Mother, we had eventually taken the propagation of Anioma to another dimension in the global stage of culture. She was indeed a darling to work with – very audacious in speech, attractive as a quintessence of beauty, an intellectual par excellence and much more.
Since Omu Anioma soared higher, I have not had anyone called and stayed on the phone with me for more than two hours. She was a great speech maker; her strength of communication was equal to none. Once she picked interest in someone, she went all out to make that person better and well upgraded. Knowing her upgraded my media and public relations practice.
Omu Anioma made me visible and known to many, locally and internationally. When I was appointed her Media Consultant, I thought the term of reference would only revolve around writing her press statements, reporting her events, handling media relations for her and may be travelling with her occasionally on some of her invitations. But it was beyond that.
I practically became Omu’s anchor man, handling all her itineraries – approving functions that she must attend and must not attend. Because, she would always ask for my opinion. Her events were exceptionally planned by both of us, and sometimes with Mr. Godfrey Osakwe. Many dignitaries went through me to book for a space for the legendary and inspirational communicator – from within Anioma, Delta State, Eastern States, Northern States, Governments of Delta and Nigeria, local and international NGOs, including researchers from various universities in UK and USA. I went with her on various business functions by NACCIMA, visits to kingdoms and universities as guest speaker. It was massive experience working with this classy cultural woman that became the rave of the moment and always a cynosure of all eyes.
What more can I say in this short piece if not to start thinking about putting a book together to share experiences of working with this Mother Without Borders in greater dimension. She was never a coward, even when death was staring at her in the face, she was busy dishing out the remaining instructions from the ones she had long given. This is because most often, she would say things, but because we were not thinking of her departure in the immediate, we ignored them. It was when she shocked us with her exit that we realized a lot of things that she had been saying.
Adieu Nneoha (Mother To All and Mother Without Borders). Keep shining where you are Nneoma! Your radiance will always glitter in the heart of most of our people in Anioma and even beyond. Your special son, Comrade Patrick Ochei loves you, always!
Comrade Patrick Ochei is a Journalist, Publisher and Child Protection Advocate.
