My love for HID Awolowo made me work with her for 11 years – Personal Secretary

HID Awolowo

ABEOKUTA- Mrs Chinwe Ero-Phillips, the Personal Assistant and Secretary to wife of late sage, Chief Mrs. Hannah Idowu Dideolu Awolowo, yesterday, narrated how her love for the late HID made her to work for 11 years.

Mrs Ero – Phillips said   she was initially unwilling to work for   Mama, because of her age,   but, she soon fell in love with her and wished HID had lived on and on.

The woman, who has spent 11 years working for Mama at close range, said the Yeye Oodua,   detested lateness to work and carrying out ones’s task haphazardly.

Disclosing   her last moment with Mrs Awolowo before she passed on last Saturday afternoon by 3:15pm, the aide said: “I attend weekend lectures. So, on Friday I was around to see her, we exchanged pleasantries, I was   commended for the preparations concerning the Centennary birthday and also prayed for her and she too enquired about my children.

“On Saturday, I Ieft for school and was shocked   when I heard   that Mama was having difficulty breathing and I called her and she did not respond that was the time I knew Mama was gone. I will miss her greatly.”

While sharing how   she found became Mama’s PA, she said she saw a job vacancy seeking Personal Assistant to the Chairman of a national newspaper adding that she merely applied without knowing the person was the matriarch of the Awolowo dynasty.

She said: “I was first interviewed in Ibadan and later during the second leg of the interview, I was brought to Ikenne, Ogun State, where I saw Mama and concluded that there was no way I   could work with an aged woman of 89 at the time.”

Continuing, Ero – Phillips said “it was employment matter that brought me into the life of Mama. I was initially skeptical working for an aged woman because she was 89 then. I saw a vacancy for position of a Secretary to the Chairman of a national newspaper and I applied without knowing who the person could be.

“About three months after the interview, I received my employment letter to work with Mama Awolowo in Ikenne. I was quite skeptical and reluctantly accepted the offer, but momentarily kept consoling myself with the idea that I will be looking for jobs elsewhere.

“But as years went by, I discovered that Mama was a woman anybody would be privileged to work for. I didn’t have reason to change job even when opportunities came, I didn’t look in that direction to see whatever was in it.”

Meanwhile, Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives, Lasun Yusuf; former   Minister of Defence, Lt. General Theophilus Danjuma (retd); Lagos deputy governor, Dr Idiat Adebule; former governor of Osun State, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola and Mrs Bola Obasanjo, were part of those who paid tributes to the family of the Awolowo matriarch.

Others who also visited the Ikenne home of Awolowo were; wife of the Oyo State Governor, Mrs. Florence Ajimobi and Senator Olohunnimbe Mamora.

She left a good legacy—Deputy Speaker

The Deputy Speaker, in his remarks said the late sage and his wife had left a good legacy for the Yoruba nation.

Yusuf said , “If you look at the history of Nigeria very well, particularly the history of South-West, Chief Obafemi Awolowo united the Yoruba from two fronts: first, he was a politician and he was a Premier of the Western region. He did fantastically well and two he was the leading Yoruba leader. So after the death of Baba, Mama   continued to unite the Yorubas and continued in the footsteps of Papa . “The Awolowos, as a family have left   a good legacy for us in Yorubaland and in Nigeria.

She was a strong pill ar —Adebule

In her remarks, Lagos deputy governor urged Nigerian women to emulate and adopt the virtues of womanhood which she said   Mama represented.

Adebule, who led a delegation of women from Lagos State which include wife of the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mrs. Falilat Obasa, wife of the Chief of Staff to the Lagos State Governor, Professor (Mrs) Yemi Tunji-Bello; the Iyaloja General of Lagos, Chief (Mrs) Folashade Tinubu-Ojo, described HID Awolowo as a strong pill ar behind the success of Chief Awolowo in his political life.

Adebule said, “We recognise the support she gave to her husband, our father, Chief Obafemi Awolowo while he was alive and not only did she give him all the support but she endured and on the basis of that, women in Lagos are here to pay our condolences to the family.

She departed with dignity, majesty — Danjuma

On his part, Former Minister of Defence, General Danjuma said “Mama was a remarkable lady who retained her faculty to the very end of her long life. She departed with dignity and majesty”.

Mama Awolowo was a unifying matriarch – Boroffice

Also, the Senator representing Ondo North, Prof. Ajayi Boroffice described the demise of Mrs  Awolowo as the glorious exit of a unifying matriarch.

He said “in spite of her ripe age and well-accomplished life, Mama’s death is shocking as arrangements are in top gear for her centenary celebration. Mama lived an eventful life as an exponent of peace and a model for national unity.   Undoubtedly, a jewel of inestimable value is gone. May her soul rest in the blossom of the lord.”

Labour, textile workers mourn

Also, the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, described the late matriarch as “the rallying point for the continued propagation and perpetuation of the Awolowo philosophy after the exit of Pa Awolowo.”

NLC in a statement by its factional President Mr. Joe Ajaero, said “she exhibited the same wisdom and tact with which Pa Awo was noted for. The body language and the fine nuances that was the hallmark of the husband she appropriated and elegantly made hers.”

Similarly, the National Union Tesxtile, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria, NUTGTWN, mourned the death of Mrs Awolowo, saying “Africa has indeed lost a role model for womenhood, family, humility, hard work and love of inestimable value”.

NUTGTWN in a statement by its General Secretary, Mr. Issa Aremu, said “Mama HID Awolowo just like her respected great nationalist statesman, husband, Chief Obafemi Awolowo lived to the end on her sweat and hard work  not  on corruption and stolen public wealth which sadly is the norm in Nigeria today among some statesmen and their wives.”

Vanguard