Mama Lilian Onwuka: Humble Mother with Heart of Gold

Steve Onwuka

The first attraction on meeting Mama Lilian Egejuru Onwuka was her quiet and calm mien. She was generous with her smiles, soft-spoken and amiable. Yet Mama’s  reputation for unusual humane and kind actions from her working days in Nkwerre, preceded her.

Born on January 01, 1947, to the family of Onugha and Nwuche Ihetu of Amorji-ugwu village in Nkerre, Imo State, Mama Lilian could not even complete her primary education before the demise of her parents. She later got married in 1962 to Joseph Onwuka, a Civil Servant/Businessman in the same town.

The marriage was blessed with 4 children. While still giving birth, the family was dislodged from Bori, Ogoni, during the Nigerian Civil war, in 1968. It was while surviving the war in Nkwerre that Mama Lilian brought her industry and charity into play.

The restaurant she opened to support her young family soon turned into a charity outfit where the hungry could run to for rations. She later gained employment in St Catherine’s Girls’ Secondary School, a premier secondary in Nkwerre, as Cook and retired as a Matron after 12 years.

Lilian Egejuru’s story is indeed, a remarkable one of humble celebrity by a Secondary school staff, employed as a Cook, who became very much well-known in her Community by dint of her Christian living, humane personality and kindness. Mama Lilian, popularly known as Daa Lily, at one time, or Mmanta, at other times, went beyond the call of duty to perpetuate a positive memory in the hearts of future Achievers and Leaders of her home Community. That, and other such reasons are why the old girls of St Catherine’s Girls’ Secondary School, Nkwerre, have converged with their husbands, from across the globe, ready to celebrate this humble woman with a heart of gold, o the 27th of December 2024, at her funeral. She lived her life as an indiscriminate and humble Mother and Nurturer of young people, a specie of humanity that is rare today.

Many successful young women today who, as children, passed through through St Catherine’s Girls Secondary School, Nkwerre, a premier Girls school in the East, where Mama worked for over a decade, have described her as a mother they would have loved to have biologically. This was due to how she related closely with them, knew their first names and cared to ask after their childhood problems. There was no discrimination on her part, between her own biological children and other children she came across, who had left home to get boarding school education in Nkwerre. The same was the case with many other successful adults today from Nkwerre who happened to have grown up in the same childhood peer groups as her children. They testify today about the large heart, and open arms with which Mama Lilian Egejuru Onwuka welcomed them into her home, and more especially into her kitchen for good food, that important gastronomical experience which, as we know, children growing up in the village never forget!

Left to mourn her are three Children and twelve grandchildren. Among the children are Steve Onwuka, who is the Chief of Protocol at the ECOWAS Commission, and Chidimma Okwumo, a professional Public Health Practitioner in England.