With little or no formal western education, she was more cosmopolitan than her contemporaries (men and women) who had the privilege of formal education. She was fearless, outspoken and high minded. Her high mindedness manifested most in her ability to, single handedly, educate all her children after the loss of her husband at a relatively young age.
Even at the point of death, she was not the type that allowed anybody or anything to trifle with her. Even in that condition, she remained herself, choosing when to talk, whom to talk to and when not to at all. It was not the sickness. After all, she recognised everyone who came around and she could speak almost throughout. It was her mindset – a bit rebellious against the idea of being restricted to the space of the hospital or contained as it were, no matter how pleasant the hospital might have been. In other words, she fought death and died literarily on her own terms. She was a powerful woman.
That was Madam Cecilia Ogele Adah, the Otukpo based prominent community and women leader in Ohimini Local Government Area of Benue State who has now passed on after a protracted illness. The 75 year old Madam Cecilia who died in an Abuja hospital hails from Ekpulu in her native LGA but was even more known in her late husband’s village, Ogene-Amejo in Edumoga District of Okpokwu Local Government, also in Benue State.
Among those left to mourn her are Nicholas Agbo Ella of the Nigerian Consulate in New York, Mr Vincent Ella, a Lagos based businessman; Mrs Josephine Ella of the NOWA Srcondary School, Abuja and Mr. Joe Ella, an Abuja based civil servant. These are besides numerous grand children. Above all, the Church in Otukpo would miss her.
