Abdulwarees, the writer of this piece poses with Maami Eko
By Abdulwarees Solanke
As I write this piece, my tears flowed freely. Saline water cascaded down my cheeks as droplets of warm tears soon wet my dress.
It is the story of a mother hen that laid no eggs of her own. Her ovaries weren’t probably good enough to release eggs any sperm can fertilize to carry a full term pregnancy.
Yet, this hen helped to hatch many chicks. Her proxy chickens have grown into big cocks with vibrant and piercing crows in the wee hours of night and at dawn to ginger the dreary and slothful to life to resume the rat race. Their talons too are now honed and can penetrate the hard earth while seeking its dainties.
But time had ripened this mother hen. She is now frail in body, enfeebled by the harsh fate of barreness. But the mother hen is still high in hope, the hope of ultimate success in this world and the hereafter.
Who is she?
She is: Sabila Adunni Oladipupo, a childless woman that shielded and nurtured the children of others.
She hails from Ikija, Abeokuta, where the iconic Olumo Rock is rooted. Her family house, Ile Oloya is one of the popular family compounds strewn around Olumo but now fenced off the tourist centre. Most of such compounds have been pulled down or are now deserted, formerly boisterous homesteads are now mere relics around Olumo Rock.
Does anyone who enjoys nightcrawling in Abeokuta from the early 70s till the dawn of 2000 remember Rocklanders Hotel? That talk of town hotel bordered Ile Oloya.
But back to Sabila, our mother hen, In her hey days, she was the talk of town in Ikija and even beyond. She was bold and beautiful. She was also good in business. To an extent, she is considered a success among her peers and envied by all. She had dress sense and given the kind of environment she hailed from, she towers among women. But…as a woman, Sabila was floored by many of her peers because of the flaw of her inability to conceive a child of her own.
From my estimation, Sabila, popularly called ‘Maami Eko’ in her family compound, is well above or around 90 now. If IVF and other artificial conception methods were popular in the 40s and 50s when she was at her prime, perhaps she would have succeeded in having a child.
However, her luckless fate to carry a pregnancy meant marital instability for her. It also meant ‘use and dump syndrome’ in her life.
In search of fortune and fruit of the womb, Adunni travelled far and wide, even to places in the North, like Gombe where she took residence for many years.
Of course, she is called ‘Maami Eko’ because she had also lived and traded in clothe, liquor and jewellery in Lagos too. The search for fruit of the womb eventually drained all her resources as she could not carry on with capital intensive businesses again. She could no longer sit in a big shop as ‘cash madam’. She was indeed in time past, so cash suffused to the extent that famous musicians celebrated her with moving lyrics.
To carry on, she relocated to Ita Oshin to open a small roadside shop. There’s no business that is unbefitting in Maami Eko’s lexicon. She traded in vegetables at Ita Oshin Motor Garage. Later she went deeper into Ope Oluwa to sell akpu, bread, and eko.
Another flaw of Mama Eko is that her palms are too open. She is generous to a fault. There’s nothing she cannot give away freely. Her soup pot and wardrobe are without keys, ever open to the hungry and clotheless and for anyone to take anything they need.
But she is a no-nonsense woman. She cant stand the opression of the weak. With her strong voice and charismatic presence, she advocates for the voiceless around her in her hey days.
Her greatest virtue in her misfortune is converting her barrenness to being a builder of family bridges and a baby dump for mindless mothers who could not groom their children.
She was a refuge for women poor in parenting skills. She is the easy resort of orphans. She became the habitual and itinerant ‘Omugo’ (surrogate mother in Igbo language) for young women without dependable mothers and mother in laws. Now, Sabila The Mother Hen is frail, feeble and gone in years but still strong in faith.
Wondering how I came to know so much about this Woman Of Virtue? Well, I’m a direct beneficiary of her Charity.
She is actually my aunt. My mother’s only female sibling. Sabila shared a lot in common with my mother, including name. While my mother is Adufe, she is Adunni.
The strength of her faith is demonstrated by her determination not to sell off the land willed to her in Oke Ata area, holding strong to the belief that her own children will build it for her.
Living With Sabila
Among her nephews and nieces, Maami Eko has special liking for my mother’s children. The duo were actually like twins, although different in temperament with my mother being the patient, peaceful type but lacking in taste or finesse whereas Maami Eko was more social and vocal in her youth.
When my mother died in January 1995, Maami Eko became the perfect fit that filled her vacuum.
Anytime we were in Abeokuta for Ileya, my paternal family house where we killed our Qurban was always her permanent base.
She takes pleasure and pride in strapping my infant or toddler children on her back or holding the hands of ones that have started taking their steps.
Is Sabila Really Barren?
Some of us that passed through her care and tutelage are the chickens of the mother hen.
With the number of babies that she has nurtured and supported to live among the children of her siblings, the babies of friends and co-wives she has succoured or the crying children she has comforted with her milkless breasts when their mothers were not in sight, Maami Eko can be said to have redefined barrenness.
When I left the boarding house in 1980 in my form three while being a student of Egba Comprehensive High School, Asero Abeokuta, I found comfort in the open floor of Maami’s abode in Ile Oloya, my maternal house in Ikija.
The Living Dream of Sabila
Now Sabila is frail and slowed by age, but the dream of having a house of her own is not shattered.
Recently, I with my brother, Alhaji Sarafadeen Solanke of Ogun State Signage and Advertising Agency, Mr. Taofiq Ladipo famously called Apola in Abeokuta and environs, Taoheed Ladipo aka Omo Alubarika and Mr. Maruf Bidemi Ladipo, a LASU graduate of accounting and staff of an environmental consultancy firm in Lagos, Azmarineber decided to visit her to assure her that we will see to the fruition of her dream whether she’s alive or dead.
We prayed for life and the wherewithal. Full of joy, she was speechless by our commitment. And when asked to pray for us as we prepared to disperse and return to our bases, she rained a volcano of prayers, assuring us of miracles in the offing.
This is my story of Maami Eko, Sabila, Adunni Ladipo I now specially give her the honorific *Adunni Ologopupo*.
