By Emeka Obasi
What a bumper dance hall party there is in Heaven as Angels welcome Mrs Cordelia Ogbonne Anibeze with a ceremonial parade.
And commanding the saintly Guard of Honour is Sylvester Chidobu Anibeze who will be reuniting with his darling after 59 years.
I am sure Ma Anibeze, 94, is already doing Gwo gwo ngwo with her love. The woman and Mike Ejeagha shared the same paternal cord. Her late son, Thomas, was a musician and could blow the trumpet to high heavens. The atmosphere is electrifying and Mother Earth is not left out. Grandson Chisom continues with the musical legacy, communicating with the piano and guitar.
The story of the Anibezes says so much about the Civil War. They lived in Kano until the Genocide began through the pogrom that followed the July 29, 1966 counter coup. Mr. Sylvester Anibeze did not sense danger when he sent his family to the Eastern Region, on holidays.
He returned to his Nigeria Railway Corporation job in Kano. That decision turned out to be a costly mistake. When the killings began, Anibeze tried to escape on an outward bound train. As the mob overwhelmed the station, he jumped out and ran for dear life. That remains the last anyone heard of him.
That was also the lot of the Uduezues. Nosike was at Government Secondary School Owerri in 1966. His parents lived in Bukuru, near Jos. Mr. Phil Anaedozie Uduezue, a miner, returned to the East with his family after the July 29, 1966 coup.
In August, Emir Ado Bayero of Kano who had become Chancellor of the University of Nigeria Nsukka, assured the Igbo that all was well in the North and they could return. The miner harkened to the call, with his friend, Brown Ogbogu. They reported to work. And the mob appeared. He ran into the forest. Lost forever.
Left with no news of her husband’s fate, Mama Anibeze assumed the role of father and mother. Picture a 36 – year – old woman left to take care of six children, all alone. Then in 1967, war broke out. The family which found a new home in their Agu – Obu Owa, village, Ezeagu, became homeless when Federal troops overran the Northern part of Biafra.
A widow and her battalion, roaming war ravaged Biafra. Mama did not sit idle. She ventured into business, beginning with a restaurant at Nkwo – Agana in Olo. Nigerian Air Force bombers would give her no peace. The family moved shelter legion times, as refugees.
To break her heart the more, her second son, Thomas, a teenage boy, was conscripted by Biafran soldiers to join the Army. The widow dared them. She walked the distance, visiting all military formations, as bombs dropped from the air, looking for her son. When she found him, nothing could stop her from going back with the boy.
The soldiers’ heart melted when they heard the Anibeze story. They let her go. It was quite unusual. I remember how one of my uncles was conscripted and thrown into a dry well to hinder escape. His wife took food to the military base. Soldiers on duty, welcomed her, collected the food, ate it and pooed inside the plate.
After the war, the Anibezes waited, praying that the head of the family survived in Kano. He remains missing. Mama remained strong for the children – Moses, Thomas, Charles, Chike, Onochie and her only girl, Vivian. A devout Roman Catholic, she held on to her Rosary.
Mama Anibeze rose from the ashes of war, to buy a brand new Toyota car in 1978. While some others relied on their husbands to gift them vehicles, she made herself husband. Four years later, in 1982, another ‘tear rubber’ ride came, a Mazda 929.
Her last son, Onochie, Editor of Saturday Vanguard, will continue to miss his mom who departed on December 24, 2024. “She is the greatest mom I have ever known in life. It is now that I look back and I wonder how she coped with six children, during and after the war,” he said.
Onochie’s nickname is Onyegwu, which could mean good dancer. No, he is nowhere near Mama in dancing. His own is football where he played for Enugu NEPA before the lights went off, through injury. Some of his contemporaries in the Coal City, Charles Okonkwo, Ikechukwu Ofoje and Francis Okaro, later played for Rangers.
Mama spent her last years with Onochie in Lagos. There was no sign that she wanted to depart but she probably knew it was extra time. When Vivian, now Mrs Iworah visited, their mother confided in her that she wanted to go back to her Trans Ekulu home in Enugu.
Onochie did not know about this. Eventually Mama flew back to her roots. I joked with Onyegwu that Mama outsmarted him because she did not want to bother anyone with flying her corpse back from Lagos, which would cost some money.
Mrs Iworah eulogized her mother. “ My mom remained very strong. She did not need help to bathe and made sure she did not spend time in the hospital for the children to spend much on bills. She loved her Rosary and held on to it, even on the death bed.”
“Anytime the doctors removed the rosary from her neck in the course of medication, she never forgot to bring it back, closer”, Vivian said. “I am not praising her because she was my mom. Mama taught me love, dignity, forgiveness.
“When marriage approached, millionaires came knocking. Mama advised me to follow love, not money. She cautioned that with love, money will come. Even when I settled down and the usual marital challenges came, she gave me the book of St. Augustine. So religious, Mama stopped eating beef after I had my first child in 1991. She made a vow to God to take that as her prayer offering to lift people in purgatory.”
Mama lived to see her brother, Malachy Ezeilo’s wife climb the political ladder. Cecilia Ezeilo, the immediate past Deputy Governor of Enugu State, was married to Chief Malachy Ezeilo, Commissioner for Works and Rural Electrification during the administration of governor Jim Nwobodo in the old Anambra State.
I was opportune to enjoy the Anibezes’ hospitality in 1989, at their New Haven home in Enugu. My journey back to Enugu from Nsukka after watching Rangers against Iwuanyanwu National at the Akanu Ibiam Stadium ended in that house. I slept over, with Mama wondering why I wanted to spend money lodging elsewhere.
These days, Onochie seems to have abandoned football for tennis. An Anibeze once played for Lagos Railways but ended up as an Accountant at the African Continental Bank (ACB). Ben Anibeze, better known as Little Ben, also served briefly as Chairman Enugu Rangers board. Pa Sylvester Anibeze played tennis at the NRC quarters, Kano.
The music goes on. Mrs Cordelia Anibeze will be buried on February 8. Before moving to Trans Ekulu, her home was New Haven, Enugu. The permanent address henceforth is Heaven. What a party it will be as Sylvester and Cordelia Anibeze begin the everlasting chapter of their truncated love life.
