THE DEPARTURE OF THE STORIED STORYTELLER PHILOSOPHER CALLED MRS TIMIEBI MAIKA EKANPOU OF OYANGBENE TOWN IN BURUTU LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF DELTA STATE
By EKANPOU ENEWARIDIDEKE, author of the novel Spiked Beyond Spikes, and winner of the 2004 Isidore Okpewho Prize for Literature with his book entitled The Road to Ken Saro-Wiwa, and he is a son to late Mrs Timiebi Maika Ekanpou.
Timiebi Maika Ekanpou who hails paternally from Oyangbene, Ayakoromo, and Akugbene and maternally from Ogbe-Ijoh town was a remarkable storyteller philosopher and phenomenal philanthropist who died on 30 August 2020 but now programmed to be honoured with final burial rites on 21 January 2023 at Oyangbene in Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State.
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Throughout out her incarnation on earth, mathematically placed at 79 years(1941-2020), she philosophised the world impactfully with her philosophically anchored didactic stories that charted a clear moral path for her generation and beyond.
Her stories were always loaded with edifying statements that she constantly became a quotable personality in every discourse of intellectuals.To many people,Timiebi Maika Ekanpou is the refinery of quotable philosophical statements.
Every story of Mrs Timiebi Maika Ekanpou carries different quotable statements laden with both ancient and contemporary wisdom.
Mrs Timiebi Maika Ekanpou was also known as a fisherwoman and a sailor. With her sky-house ship she sailed from Akparemogbene to Enieborgbene,Ofirikigbene, Izansa, Ikeremor, Aferesuoaghagbene and back to Ayakoromo, Oyangbene, Ezebiri, Ogodobiri and many other places selling fishes and buying sugar-cane,sweet potatoes, Ogogoro gin and cassava.
In her sailing business she virtually did everything trade by barter.
Engaged in this sailing and fishing occupations, Mrs Timiebi Maika Ekanpou became a household name for her fish-philanthropy.
Her fish-generosity was extended to any person that came her way.She was such a phenomenal giver that no day passed without her display of fish-philanthropy which was extended to anybody irrespective of tribe.
Tribe does not exist in her daily vocabulary while she was alive.In her daily interactions with diverse people across the world, Mrs Timiebi Maika Ekanpou did not see tribe as a significant factor in building a functional relationship.
Mrs Timiebi Maika Ekanpou was a fiery human rights activist who pursued human rights activism through her philosophy called ‘Wiyouism’ interpreted to mean who are you to deprive people of their fundamental human rights?
She did not allow anyone to deprive her of her basic human rights and she was always ready to fight for the human rights of any deprived person.With her philosophy of ‘Wiyouism’ she popularised her struggle and agitation for human rights restoration in every organisation without discrimination.
There is no human rights activism without Timiebi as there is no Mrs Timiebi Maika Ekanpou without the ‘Wiyouism’ philosophy in the history of human rights activism in Nigeria though Timiebi’s human rights activism carried resonance and reverberations more at the level of microcosm in Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State.
In her heydays Timiebi’s comradeship cannot be denied by the likes of Joseph Evah and others.
4.Despite the human rights activism of Mrs Timiebi Maika Ekanpou,she was a great caring mother who gave her children all the motherly attention required in the history of motherhood.
In motherhood Timiebi was an excellent mother who showed love to all her children without discrimination and she will ever be remembered as an unforgettable mother even after many centuries have gone by.
It saddens all her children that with all her phenomenal motherhood and kindness to others displayed philanthropically, she could not still live up to one hundred years, only dying at the painful age of 79(1941-2020).
From now till the close of this age, Mrs Timiebi Maika Ekanpou who will be honoured with final burial rites in Oyangbene on 21 January 2023 will always remain a great mother in the archive of her children and beyond.
It is with tears of short-lived dreams and calculations that I shall say final safe journey to my great mother Mrs Timiebi Maika Ekanpou on 21 January 2023 because I know certainly she did not have enough of me and that my great plans for her for taking good care of me on earth were not fruitfully executed before she died.
My tears are therefore tears of not having enough of Timiebi Maika Ekanpou before her death which is appallingly contrary to all my conceptualizations.
