A smile spread like a rainbow across her face,
flooding her countenance with colour as she danced to the beat of the music.
The strident rhythm of Kaycee’s popular hit – Pullover, urged her on. A crowd
of excited children joined her in this frenzied dance, their faces beaming in
blissful contentment. It was easy to see that her mood was infectious and that
the children’s happiness was merely a reflection of her own passion. She was in
her element. It could be easily seen that nothing else would have given her as
much fulfillment at that moment in time. It was her birthday. And she chose to
mark it with handicapped children and the less privile
Indeed those who know Chief Mrs Ebelechukwu Obiano,
the First Lady of Anambra State are familiar with this side of her. Long before
she became the wife of the debonair governor of Anambra State, young Ebele had
always marveled at the unquestionable ways of the Almighty God which manifest
in the strange inequalities of nature. The perplexity of children born with
disability, the profound uncertainty of the life of children whose mothers
abandon at the point of birth and the ever widening gulf between the
dispossessed and the blessed of the earth never ceased to amaze her. Unlike
most people with her comfortable childhood, little Ebele was precocious enough
to look beyond her immediate comfort to acknowledge the humanity of others
whose circumstances were less than idyllic.
And so, it was almost seamless for her to make the
smooth transition to the position of the wife of a man whose life finds rebirth
in the very act of helping those who are in dire need of a jolt of kindness. Her
marriage to Governor Willie Obiano opened a window into the puzzling world of
her childhood in a manner that made it difficult to look away from situations
that could use her direct intervention. Playing the role of the silent
instigator, Ebelechukwu nudged her husband towards a more programmed approach
to philanthropy. The Obiano’s soon began to make themselves noticeable in the
ancient Eri kingdom with timely interventions in the lives of the people,
providing succor and transformative assistance to people in need. Although they
lived and worked incredible schedules in Lagos, they still found sufficient
time to reach out and touch lives in Aguleri and environs where their
intervention was most needed. It was purely on account of their endless
striving to enrich the lives of others that the couple was given the rare
titles of Akpokuedike (the warrior in demand) and Osodieme (the one who does
like her husband). That was long before they ever dreamt of serving Anambra
State as the first family.
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Interestingly, quite unlike people who are inured to
the pains of others by the trappings of power and influence, Ebelechukwu
Obiano’s concern and passionate affection for the downtrodden has grown since
she became the First Lady of Anambra State. Indeed, Osodieme, as she is fondly
called by friends and close aides has left no one in doubt that she has a soft
core for the unfortunate members of society who occupy the lower margins of our
collective existence. These are mostly children with special needs, people
living with disability, the extremely poor and young women who are have no
life-aiding skills to scrap a living. Osodieme is usually at her best in any
conversation on how to open a crack on the wall of our collective conscience
and let the sunshine of our kindness warm these people up. At such moments, her
beautiful face glows like amber light as she reminds you that these people
enrich our world in ways that words cannot tell. “They are God’s special gifts
to humanity,” she once told a documentary production team in a recent interview
session. “Our world is incomplete without them. They remind us of our
imperfections and God’s completeness. God created these people with us in mind.
We all have a responsibility to reach out and touch them in our own separate
ways and capacities,” she explained, figuratively opening a window into her
heart of pure gold.
It is obviously for the purpose of “reaching out to
touch” these special members of the human community that Osodieme decided to
set up the Caring Family Enhancement Initiative (CAFE), her pet project with
which she has launched a bold effort at giving meaning to the lives of the
dispossessed and disadvantaged. Long before the unveiling of CAFÉ in an
elaborate ceremony in August this year, Osodieme had touched many lives with
her acts of kindness and a dazzling smile. She has carried herself well as
someone who is fully aware of her unique position as the mother of the state
and has accepted the full weight of her responsibility without a blink. One of
the many beneficiaries of Osodieme’s golden heart is Basden Memorial Secondary
School, Isulo in Orumba South Local Government Area of Anambra State. Perhaps
nothing has ever tasked Osodieme’s emotion in all her years of responding to
the yearnings of the less privileged members of the society like this school.
Before Osodieme began to take interest in Basden
Memorial Secondary School, a school for children with disability, the school
had wallowed in abysmal neglect and squalor. The students studied in
incredulous conditions and wore the forlorn look of people who had been cast
away. They had no immediate source of water and were routinely fed on
threadbare meals. Osodieme’s heart melted when she met them in that near
hopeless state of existence. Her visit turned out to be the turning point the
students had prayed for and things have since changed drastically with her
intervention. The children no longer have to crawl all over the nearby forest
in search of a stream to fetch water from. Not only are they fed on better diet
these days but their general environment of learning is undergoing a massive
overhaul with new classroom blocks being added to the existing ones. In fact,
following Osodieme’s passionate interest in their affairs, her husband, the
governor has given free education to the students of Basden Memorial and other
children living with disability in the state. And that is the way it should be
– an archetypal mother figure in the government house, nudging her husband, the
governor, to cast a glance in the direction of forgotten citizens and make the
world a better place for them.
Indeed, Osodieme has continued to demonstrate her
capacity to make a difference in the lives of Anambra women and children. With
her pet project, CAFÉ, she has given hope to so many abandoned babies in
Anambra State, some of whom she personally picked up in the streets and handed
to orphanages. She has also held vocational courses for young girls in the
state to equip them with crucial surviving skills. Through CAFÉ, Osodieme has
provided soft loans and outright grants as well as equipment to rural women in
the state to enable them start a trade.
Osodieme also seems to harbour a deep love for widows.
In recent times, her pet project, CAFÉ seems to have struck a rhythm with Mrs
Patience Jonathan’s Women for Change Initiative. The two groups are
collaborating in a heart-warming manner that will change the austere lifestyles
of many widows in Anambra State. She personally supervised the distribution of
special empowerment packages for widows from the entire South Eastern Nigeria
who thronged the Alex Ekwueme Square. During the event, Osodieme made a
plaintive speech, urging Ndigbo to rethink the tradition that suddenly turns a
loving wife, mother and sister into a witch and a murder suspect once her
husband is dead. She even announced her plans to sponsor a bill in the Anambra
State House of Assembly that would free widows from the clutches of an unjust
tradition.
In all, looking at the trajectory of the life of Chief
Mrs. Ebelchukwu Obiano, one gets the feeling that those who believe that there
is something in a name might be right after all. At least, Ebelechukwu (the
mercy of God) Obiano looks set to epitomize the mercies of the Most High God in
the lives of the downtrodden in Anambra State today.
By James Eze (eziokwubundu@gmail.com) writes from Awka,
Anambra State
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