Intervention cannot call her death the end of an era because the Adulugba family in Edumoga District of Okpokwu Local Government Area of Benue State is too vast for that to be the case. But, in so many senses, Mrs Onyikwu Adeka has been a historical figure from her first to her last day February 19th, 2024.
First, she was an overwhelmingly physically beautiful woman – tall, permanently slender with a musical voice
Dr Mathew Agaba, a retired federal director (left) and Mr. Francis Adeka, a microbiologist and the junior brother of Enekolee’ (right) with some of ‘Enekolee’s daughters after the burial ceremony at Opialu in Edumoga March 3rd, 2024
Second, she was married to a judicial service officer who was to become the District Head of the largest of the 22 districts in the old Idoma Native Authority. It was, indeed, a privilege to be so married because, apart from D.Os, judicial service officers in the 1960s were well located.
Third, she is the mother of the sensationally pretty daughters by which the first family of the largest district in Idomaland became sign posted for a long time – from the late Mary to Maria, Maureen, Oganya, Kate, Ochanya before the male children came towards the evening of her life.
Fourth, as the first wife of the District Head and, therefore, the ‘Enekolee’, (mother of the family which should not translate to matriarchy though), she witnessed the massive developmental shake-up Chief D.A Adulugba brought about by transforming Edumoga from a collection of farm settlements into wholesome villages. The late chief argued that farm settlements made development impossible because they were small and far apart. Development was particularly about schools, health centres, inoculation and tax assessment. These were serious matters in those days, both in the quality of services provided and the regularity of such services, with particular reference to inoculation.
A traditional ruler who was developmental!
The developmental trajectory of Chief D A Adulugba thus pointed to the pastoral aspect of state power as school enrolment, primary health care delivery at health centres, inoculation and tax assessment constituted the classical biopolitical practices by which the state fulfilled its responsibility of ensuring citizens who are good fit for the market economy. The late Onyikwu Adeka was the most authoritative memory of this until her demise.
Fifth, even in death, she is a rural gender statement. Nobody called her any other name beyond Onyikwu Adeka. It is possible that, in her official documents, she was called to the husband but that was not not what obtained at the level of the folk. The rural political economy up to this day is not free of patriarchal tendencies and gender inequality but the fact that she remained known to her real name throughout life suggests that the culture of post-marriage name adjustment is not one of them. This is one point that gender activism in Nigeria needs to update and verify how true in other places or otherwise.
Sixth and lastly, born in 1924, she lived up to a hundred years, a rare feat in longevity.
All these combined to give her a certain edge as for her death to evoke memories of the Chief Adulugba era as District Head of Edumoga from 1967 to 2010 when he died. Intervention says this without prejudice to the eminence of each of the late Chief Adulugba’s wives viz:
EniJani – mother of the soldier boy nicknamed by the chief as ‘Secretary’ (Akawo) and who is now a legal practitioner
Mama Eliza – beauty and presence in the household
En’Abah – enterprising
Elisa Junior – beautiful, young and became the mother of her husband’s successor till the emergence of a substantive District Head
EnuGarba – young mother of the soldier boy.
With still active children and grand children, ‘Enekolee’ will live in many individual as well as collective memories for quite a long time!
