By Lillian Okenwa
My father’s wig and gown attracted me to study law even though after secondary school I started having this idea of going to read Accountancy. A senior friend of mine was in IMT reading Accountancy, so I now wanted to read Accountancy. I went for the entrance exams at IMT and passed to study accountancy, but it broke my father’s heart. One night, I saw my elder sister crying. Her eyes were red, so I asked why she was crying. She said, is it not you? You’ve broken our father’s heart. He’s been weeping all day. He said all his friends had children studying law but that he is the only one not going to have a lawyer. So, I said no, no, no, and made a reversal. I went to Enugu Campus of the University of Nigeria, collected the form, and applied for law. The rest is history. He was excited.
My father died just before I was elevated to the Court of Appeal, but for him, my being a High Court judge was the height of his dream. He was a lawyer, a footballer, a politician. He had such a versatile way of life and that’s why all entreaties by his friends and some of his superiors in the legal profession to become a magistrate or judge failed. He said even his children will object because his character will not fall in line with that of judicial officers. He was very gregarious. Always on the move. He was Chairman of Enugu Rangers International and when Rangers is playing a match whether in Enugu or outside everything at home stopped. We attended all their matches physically. We were living in Enugu then.
When my father came back from England as a lawyer, he took us to Umuahia where he started his practice. It was from there he was appointed Secretary/Legal Adviser for Nigerian Airways and we moved to Lagos. With the inception of the crisis, we moved to our home base in Mbaise. He was secretary to the Statutory Bodies Operations of Biafra. At the end of the war, he moved to Enugu, even though me and my siblings, stayed back to finish our Secondary School in Mbaise Girls. Then we joined him in Enugu and later I entered the University of Nigeria Enugu Campus. Eventually, he left Enugu to become the Local Government Chairman at Mbaise between1976/78 or thereabout.
His being a politician affected us in many ways. We had a lot of deprivations on account of his participation in politics. He ploughed most of the family resources, into the system; community affairs, and all that. Our school fees were delayed from time to time and the luxury things that children should have at the home were not always there. When we were asked to leave our classes because we couldn’t pay our fees, we went home and my mother said she would wait for him to bring the money for our school fees. We stayed away for 2 weeks until my mother produced the money and we went back to school.
That was why I didn’t encourage my husband to be a politician. He opened his hospital very early in 1980. Initially, it was a clinic, then it became a hospital group. He was very active in the University of Nigeria Alumni Association and later got to be the President of the Rivers State Chapter. Before he went to the Constituent Assembly in 1988, both of us agreed he wouldn’t go. But it turned out that the people from his constituency had heard about him and insisted that a man like him is what they needed to represent them in Abuja. Both of us discussed and our decision was that he will not take it. He will build up his hospital which had been degraded after he went for specialization in Liverpool and the man kept in charge betrayed him. When he came back, he virtually had to start from scratch. He had just stabilized when this offer for him to go to the Constituent Assembly came. Having agreed he would not take the offer, he headed for Ahoada, our local government headquarters to tell those people that he was not interested. I was expecting him to come back, but in the evening, he phoned me. I thought he was in the hospital, because each time he travelled, on coming back he would head straight to the hospital and phone to say, I’m back to town but I’m in the hospital to find out how things were. Instead, he said, I’m still in Ahoada. I said what are you still doing there, you mean, you will sleep in Ahoada? He said yes, that things happened in a way he didn’t anticipate. He said I shouldn’t argue too much, that I should look for his certificates and make photocopies. That somebody will come for them early in the morning. I said, what are you saying? He replied that he didn’t have the courage to say no and I just couldn’t imagine how Peter did not have the courage because courage is his second nature.
I was so angry. But the person I was angry with was not at home. When he came back, he said, as he got to the local government headquarters, he saw those big chiefs and traditional rulers and they said, “we’ve been waiting for you.” He said tried to argue but they said no, no, no, here is the form, just sign, we will do the rest for you. That’s how he went to the Constituents Assembly. So, I said okay, let me manage this one. They did a year. That was in 1988/89 and concluded, but before then, he came back one day and said, the way I’m looking at it, this thing is heading to politics. I told him you know I come from a political home; the family suffers. He said don’t worry, what will I do for you to support me? I said build me a house. At that time, we were in the Judicial official quarters, I said to him “you will build me a house so that I’m sure my children have shelter. Then whatever you want to do, you will have my support.” He built the house.
My mother was very hardworking and I imbibed some of her traits. She was involved in palm oil trade, which was our family tradition. My father’s family was into the old oil palm trade in the oil Rivers, Opobo and Bonny. And since my mother came into our family very early, she knew how to trade in it. She was also a textile merchant if I can say so. I imbibed those attributes. I used to make money available to her to purchase palm oil for me and even did some trading in textiles. Like I told you, I grew up in a political home. I didn’t want a situation where if my husband was financially disabled, the home crashed. So, I needed to do these small things. I didn’t sell directly. I had those who would collect from me, market, and bring me the proceeds.
I have no patience for lazy women. I was happy when I also heard these words from Maryam Babangida on an occasion when we attended the Better Life for Rural Women event at the Villa. I went with the governors’ wives then and one of the things she said was that she didn’t have patience for unserious women. That’s my attitude, because like the saying “No condition is permanent”, a husband could be prosperous today, it may not be so tomorrow. And so, when that unforeseen happens and the woman is idle and has no funds of her own, what happens to the children?
Every female should have something doing. I grew up in the village. That was before my father came back from England, and I never saw any woman no matter how old, idle. Each and every one of them had something to do, no matter how small. And they used to stroll in the sluggish way of old to the market, to market either their garden egg leaves or pepper; all that they were doing. To be this complete housewife business is something I find strange and unjustifiable. It puts too much of a load on the husband, which is not right.
As First Lady, I went around communities in Rivers State, empowering women with skills acquisition. I was very happy to do that and Peter was supportive. He made a lot of promises during his campaign. When we were about coming in, the outgoing military administrator told him there was a deficit of hundreds of millions of Naira. And so, Peter took over, froze the account of the government, and managed to use his personal resources from the hospital to keep afloat some actions of the government until things normalized. But because he had made promises of 1000 houses in 100 days, and I told him to make a broadcast and explain the situation to the people. But he said, God who made him governor, will help him to find a way to solve the problem.
He had also promised water will flow in 6 weeks. Before then, there was no water in Port Harcourt metropolis. So, I said now that you have reconfirmed the situation how are you going to do it? Again, he said God will do it, and indeed, I believe God did it. Some people phoned that they were excited about the promise of a thousand houses. He told them the government does not have money. They said if he can give them the job, they will put it up and receive payment when there is money. He was excited. Before the 100 days, one hundred units was constructed in various local governments that could provide land, and before you knew it a thousand two hundred units were standing. Some of the commissioners in old regime who had the expertise were very helpful and interestingly, some of them came from the opposition.
Peter was only interested in results. To him, Rivers State people had the right to go to any party of their choice. When he first sent for them having heard they had the expertise to help him achieve his campaign promises, they thought he was going to lock them up. After discussing with them, they said it is doable, that they could do it in 3 weeks or so. In fact, there is this Ambassador Akawor who is now the PDP Chairman in Rivers State; he was a commissioner in the military regime, and then Hon. Okemitri, so the two of them got together and indeed in 3 weeks, people literally got their houses flooded. There hasn’t been water for years, so, many opened taps that people did not bother to close flooded their houses.
I gave judgment against my husband’s government.
I recall a judgment I gave as a High Court Judge in Rivers State when my husband was Deputy Governor. It was a land issue between Obiakpor local government and the state government. To me, the community was on the right side, so I gave them judgment. When my husband became governor, one day he as he was flipping through some documents in a file, he called out to me and said, come and see how some people want to use your name to get through a fraudulent land process. I said ah, ah, how? He said, can you imagine they brought some documents to show that there was a judgment you gave against government (laughs). When he showed me the document, I said yes, and I gave that judgment. He said, so you mean you gave that judgment when I was Deputy Governor against our government? I told him that it is true I gave them judgment against a government he was part of. His hand was just suspended in the air as he held up the papers. And so he let go of the land to the community.
The community named one of their streets after me but Peter objected and removed the signboard. The community, however, kept putting up the signboard with my name each time it is removed so the place remained Justice Mary Odili Street.
