By Betty Abah
Okenyi Oche Onu aka Pst Okeson my immediate younger brother and one of our mother’s seven children, clocked 50 on February 28. He had a party which attracted a large crowd of family and friends from across Lagos and beyond, an indication of the genial and genuine human being he is. Yet it looked like yesterday since this amazing human being was just a little, ‘troublesome boy’ back in Otukpo, Benue State, our mutual birthplace, and growing-up-years’ base.
I have no recollection whatsoever of when Okeson was born, as much as I have tried because he was born six days short of my second birthday (March 6). But I do remember much of our shared childhood nuisances and the ‘troubles’ a hyperactive Okrenyi (as our maternal Granny Inne Iganya called him) was. Okeson has always been ultra-bright, sharp-witted and never short of imaginations. I remember, of course, our regular and seemingly endless fights until he started patronizing the then famous Aroji Cinema at our Ojira base in Otukpo (irresistible to boys of his age) and decided to practice his Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan’s tactics on me. He started with the neck choke and I think I must have instantly seen my fragile life flash before me, realized that life had no duplicate and surrendered peacefully. End of fight till date. I remember, in addition, our shared mischiefs at Granny Inne Iganya’s house at Ukalegwu-Igwu in Orokam, our mum’s birthplace, during the long holidays. One unforgettable one was ‘stealing’ Inne’s seed corns from the rafter inside her hut and roasting them as ‘man-power’ aka popcorn while she was away to farm or Ahor–Olatukpe, the small village market (I still have no idea of the etymology of the term ‘manpower’ for popcorn or if it contains any aphrodisiac elements back in the days). Then the many memories of running joint errands for Inne, going to farm, going fruit-picking from the community mango or udara trees, going to the village market to sell for her or watching him set traps for rodents and all the things that young and restless boys of his age and ilk indulged in then. Or at Otukpo, going to the Akpa farm on weekends with our dad, Baba Onuh, a task for which refusal would be a gleeful suicide attempt.
Or, was it our attempts at being ‘collaborating child musicians’, memorising and singing the lyrics of all major songs by Igbe, the popular Idoma traditional singer (currently in her late 80’s) and the late Evangelist Peter Oturu, legendary gospel musician. Our ‘musical careers’ however died a childhood death when Mama’s relative, a radio repairer or who pretended to be one, took the family radio, took repair money and never returned it. And just like her response to the furniture man who duped her with substandard chairs her or the photographer who took deposit, covered my kid sister Eneonuh’s 1st birthday and never returned with photos, Mama simply nagged a bit and moved on. Note; most of the scammers were her relatives. Kai. Too many memories.
Yet my greatest memories with Okeson resolved around life with our late mum, our biggest influence and inspiration after God. Mama who was obviously extremely fond of her last boy (the last of three male children), named him ‘Okenyi Oche’, clarifying that he has the double title of ‘King’ or royalty. First, Oche means ‘king’ in Idoma). He was named after Mama’s late favourite brother. Added to that, she had him under a coconut tree in front of Okenyi Abah Etema’s house at Ojira on her way to the hospital while in labour thus she named him after the man who happened to be the first king or paramount ruler of our Orokam homeland. Okeson also means ‘Big Elephant’ in Ibo with whom we share some cultural and ancestral affinity. Truly, a child primed for greatness.
Mama used to ‘taunt’ him as someone ‘as frightened as a mice’ because despite his troublesomeness, he had the lethal fear of several things, majorly the constant malaria injections at the famous Dr. Obe’s Salem Hospital at Otukpo as well as of heights. Not forgetting that Okeson, like most of my siblings and I, were informally enlisted into the fine art of trading by our mum: we would help her sell in her wholesale and retail food items shop at the Otukpo main market (which she kept for almost 50 years) after school or during holidays. We were also her ‘debt recovery officials’ as she would wake us up at dawn and send us to homes of women around town who had earlier bought food items on credit from her shop. She usually kept a mental note of all the names, amounts and dates (many of them never paid till she passed). On some village or ‘outside’ market days, she would have us wake early andsit, legs spread on the floor, helping her count and arrange her wads of Naira notes before she goes to the market (mostly the Oba International Market in Enugu which she patronized for at least four decades right from an early age). Today, I have retained the amused wonderment at how far our saliva (which we put ‘methodogically’ on our fingers and use to separate the notes as we counted them) must have traveled round the country! These early wake-up routine in addition to the morning prayer call at Baba’s room for the entire family seems to have reset our biological clock to 5am wake up time anywhere in the world. On the debt recovery angle, it’s truly amazing that none of us has ended up as a staff of any financial or dept recovery institution ala EFFC, FIRS, or even IMF or the World Bank. I am sure Mama would be chewing her kola nut and chuckling in amused ‘disappointment’ from beyond.
Certainly, it is truly a delight watching Okeson grow into the amazing, amazing human being he is today. He appears to have his life’s focus sharpened after giving his life to Christ at a Deeper Life Church’s convention in Makurdi on 28 August, 1990. Like many of us, the decision to turn to God at an early age helped save us escape many youthful bad choices and deadly influences. Okeson’s creative juices as a prolific writer, sketch artist and singer has come to the fore from childhood after he found that focus. After serving as a youth pastor for some 10 years, he graduated from the Benue State University, Makurdi, pivoted into journalism briefly and returned as pastor in the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) ministry where he currently serves as Senior Pastor of the Jesus House Parish at Oke-Ira, Lagos in addition to being Area Pastor of the Jesus House area supervising a handful of other parishes. A prolific writer, he has a music album, five published books in his kitty namely four Christian books and a novel, ‘The ImmigRats’ (the latest book, ’50 Ways of Touching the Immortal’ with the name carved from his monthly revival program running for several years) was launched at his 50th birthday). He had his masters, cum laude, from the University of Lagos and is currently a Ph.D student at the Federal University of Ekiti, Ado-Ekiti.
I am blessed to have this life travel mate, a brother whose soul is fully committed to the cause of God and humanity—to uplifting the poor and marginalized around him. He utilized the occasion of his birthday to build a handrail for a scary 50-step descent into a ravine or valley inhabited by a community adjacent his parish. So precarious was the situation that it was said to have claimed the lives of two persons who fell into the valley below while trying to access the community.
At our organization CEE-HOPE, Okeson remains an invaluable asset, volunteering his service to supervising so many logistics and project works over the years. As a coordinator of our annual summer school program, his centre (sited at his church building), remains one of the best. At last year’s edition, the centre which had more than 300 children was among the best in the 10 centres spread across six states. He went far beyond the curriculum of basic subjects and a few skills to add a few other subjects (e.g. Time Management, Civic Education) to enrich the lives of the children for two full weeks all free of charge amongst other creative touches. Previously, he also built a borehole facility at the church premises to provide free water for the surrounding community about a year after resuming there.
Our family is extremely proud of the man Okeson has become: a dedicated father to his two boys, O’Oche (the King’s son) and Ochebo (King of Peace), both also February born, and his black beauty wife, Oine (meaning Sibling) , a family priest/prayer warrior, a rallying point, a counsellor and connector. Due to his well-known integrity and dedication to duty, he has served in many important positions within the RCCG cycles including as PA to the pastor at a provincial headquarters. At family level, he is also most likely to be the one to connect and befriend long lost relatives on both maternal and paternal sides. Only recently, he brought the young daughter of one of our childhood playmates back in Orokam in the ‘manpower days’ to Lagos to stay with our last born, Iberi in Lagos and to go to school. It so happened he had connected with her during our mum’s burial in 2022 during which he had established an RCCG parish at Orokam and that relative happened to be a member. He is also someone with a mind of his own, a stubborn spirit that he most likely inherited from Mama. Of the large Onuh family, he is the only one who opts to go by the surname ‘Onu’, the family name without an ‘h’. On his own, in his teenage years, he also decided to Anglicize ‘Okenyi’ to ‘Okeson’ and that has stuck ever since.
This is wishing Okeson, my dear brother, pastor, friend, supporter and confidant many, many more years of God’s goodness. And to continue to be the shiny light that Mama dreamt of us all in uprightness, service to humanity and undiluted fear of God.
Happy birthday, dear Okeson!
Ms Abah is a Lagos-based writer and founder of CEE-HOPE, a child’s rights/development NGO.