As he glances around the gathering at the famous Park Lane residence in Apapa, Lagos, Pastor J.A. Alalade of The Apostolic Church, was not expecting on answer. It was a rhetorical question that was meant to focus the minds of the audience which included dignitaries gathered to honour the passage of the daughter of their departed leader and the woman who has been described as the “Mother of the Nation”, Hannah Idowu Dideolu Awolowo.
Alalade was preaching a sermon entitled “Preparing For Life After Death”, at the burial service for Ayodele Olubusola Soyode (nee Awolowo), Hannah’s second daughter, on Friday, April 29, 2011. She died at 66 on Sunday, April 10, 2011. Unlike the death of a child that Mama H.I.D suffered 48 years earlier, the third child lived long. But no child ever lived long enough to die ahead of a parent. Despite the fact that she was an accomplished woman in her own rights and a grandmother, Ayo Soyode’s death was still a tragedy for Hannah. She had prayed to God in 1963 that she would never bury another child for the rest of life.
Now this.
Mama H.I.D sobbed as she sought to know why this should be her lot again in old age. Hannah’s third child was the least known of her children and unarguably the most reserved. But she occupied her own unique position in the famous family and among the local and church communities where she radiated inner strength and demonstrated character. Apart from Wole who lived in his own house within the Awolowo’s compound in Ikenne, Ayo was the closest to Hannah’s caretaker. As a lawyer and principal partner in the chambers founded by her father, Obafemi Awolowo and Co, she took charge of legal dynamics of the family’s vast estate over which H.I.D presided. Beyond that, she was also especially close to her. She visited her mother most weekends, travelling from her home in Apapa, Lagos. She was among Hannah’s most valued legal and personal counsels. She was also the most involved of the children in the affairs of St. Saviour’s Church, Ikenne, even though she attended church services in Lagos. At a point, she had been a lay reader at St. Saviour’s. She also supported the Obafemi Awolowo Memorial Anglican Church, Ikenne, which Mama built in memory of her husband. Her contributions to the Anglican community were recognized when she was made the Iyalode of the Obafemi Awolowo Memorial Anglican Church, Ikenne.
Thereafter, when Ayo Soyode died suddenly in April, 2011, Mama H.I.D was devastated. At almost 96, her twilight years were not supposed to be punctuated with such tragedies, she thought. Soyode’s death was made worse for H.I.D by the fact that she was still praying for the recovery of her only surviving son, Wole, who was involved in a ghastly motor accident on the road to Ibadan, on Saturday, September 30, 2006. He was at the point his immediate younger sister died in India undergoing a second surgery as a result of the spinal cord injury he suffered.
But if there was any consolation for Mama Hannah, it was the way the public, members of the Awolowo political family, and the close relations rallied round her as the news of her daughter’s death spread. The Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade Olubuse II and his wife, Olori Ladun Sijuwade, were two of the earliest callers in Ikenne once he was informed of the death of the daughter of the matriarch of the Awolowo dynasty. A somber atmosphere pervaded the Awolowos’ residence as dignitaries and the masses came calling to console the aged mother, The Ooni, was not the only monarch at Ikenne. The Akarigbo of Ijebu-Remo, Oba Michael Sonariwo and Olori Bosede Sonariwo, also visited. They were followed by old Awo faithfuls including Sir Olaniwun Ajayi, Chief Ayo Adebanjo and Chief G.O.K Ajayi. Others who visited Mama included the Governor of Ogun State, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, the soon-to-be Ogun State governor-elect, Senator Ibikunle Amosun. The clergy were also there, including the Bishop of Remo Anglican Diocese, Right Reverend Olusina Fape and his wife, Toyin Fape, the President of The Apostolic Church, Nigeria, Rev. Oladele Olutola and the General Overseer of the Emmanuel Ministries, Reverend Emmanuel Adebayo.
As she was being consoled by people, Mama H.I.D reflected on the life of her daughter from childhood. Like her younger sister, Ayodele attended UMC Demonstration School, Ibadan and St Anne’s, Molete, Ibadan. She did her HSC at Ibadan Grammar School. From the period that her husband left for England in 1944, when Ayo was still in the womb, she had cared for most of the financial needs of the late daughter of hers, as well as other children. She paid for her education at the University of Exeter, UK where she was admitted while her father was in jail. By the time she graduated in 1968, Mama was a big time trader in Balogun Market in Lagos. Having lost their only lawyer son, she and her late husband persuaded Ayo to study law at the University of Ife, which was later renamed after her father. She was called to the Bar in 1974.
She married Tayo Soyode and they were blessed with three children, Dolapo, Ladipo and Femi. Dolapo and Ladipo followed their maternal grandfather’s and mother’s track by studying law. Dolapo later married Yemi Osinbajo, a lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), who became the Vice President of Nigeria in May, 2015.
“Mama was inconsolable for days”. Mama’s grandson-in-law, Yemi Osinbajo, a professor of law and Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, responds when asked about the reaction of the matriarch to the death of his mother-in-law.
Vice President Osinbajo – who said Mama is a mother to him rather than a grandmother-in-law, because “this was someone who knew me when I was born; I literally was born into her hands” in Ikenne – explains that “it is difficult to describe the pain a mother will feel at the passing of her daughter, especially the one who was very close to her, who devoted so much time and attention in caring for her”.
The former Lagos State Attorney-General continues that, “Obviously it was a very terrible time for Mama in terms of how she felt… Everybody saw that this was a great loss for her and especially (because) my wife’s mother was very close to her. (She) was a dedicated person and very committed to the home. There is no way that anybody who had interacted with her, especially at the family level, will not feel a great sense of loss, let alone Mama, who of course, who was advanced in years”.
Mama’s granddaughter and the Vice President’s wife, Dolapo Osinbajo, adds that “Mama leaned on (my mother) heavily. She travelled with Mama a lot. She was very attentive to Mama; she was devoted to her”.
The lawyer who lived briefly with H.I.D in Lagos as a kid, revealed that she learnt a lot of lessons of life from her grandmother which have come in handy in her role now as Nigeria’s “second lady”.
“I never saw Mama lose her temper or behave out of tune. She never behaved untowardly; she never behaved without decorum”, says the late Ayo Soyode’s first child.
Described by Chief Ebenezer Babatope, as “a woman who stood by the political principles and ideals of her late father”, and one who “never wavered in her beliefs in the supreme welfare of the poor people of Nigeria”, the woman popularly called “Mummy Apapa” within the Awolowo dynasty, was the benefactor of many people. Babatunde Agbaje, one of the beneficiaries of her kindness, emphasized that, despite her heritage, Ayo Soyode “did not discriminate between the poor and the rich”. She was also committed to social good, especially where the less privileged in society were concerned. A case in point was her involvement in the crisis over the Oluwole Market in the GRA Area of Apapa. Some privileged people in the area were unhappy with the location of the market and wanted it destroyed and relocated. Both her heritage and her commitment to the less privileged were at stake in this. Her father, Obafemi Awolowo, had facilitated the creation of the market in the 1970s. Also, the traders will suffer unnecessarily if the market were closed. She defended the traders and ensured that the market was not destroyed”.
At her burial on Friday, April 29 2011, eminent Nigerians, including politicians, traditional rulers, industrialists and professionals, such as the Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola, Governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi, Governor of Ondo State, Segun Mimiko, former Governor of Ogun State, Chief Segun Osobo, Ogun State Governor-elect, Ibikunle Amosun, the Oniru of Iruland, Oba Wasiu Ogunbambi and the traditional white cap chiefs of Lagos who represented the Oba of Lagos, joined thousands of the ordinary people to bid farewell to the first Otunba Obinrin of the Liyangu Ruling House, Sagamu.
In closing his sermon, Pastor Alalade told the audience: “If whatever you do on earth is of no benefit to others, it means that your life is meaningless. But we thank God for Mummy Soyode, because she dedicated her life to God in totality. And there is no argument about it that she accomplished the specific duty assigned to her by God, before she departed to eternity”.
Hannah Awolowo, who had brought up her children to have total dedication to God, could not have wished for a better tribute to her departed daughter, as she said “Amen” to Sir Olaniwun Ajayi’s prayer that “Eni eyin ko ni saaju mo”…….
TO BE CONTINUED
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