My name is Ifeoma Egbulam. I am a philanthropist. Chijioke is a boy’s name, but I don’t know why my father gave me that name. Chijioke means ‘It is only God that holds my destiny’. So my full name is Ifeoma Egbulam Chijioke Gbole-Nwikina. Winifred is the English name they gave me.

I was born in Awka, Anambra State. My father was a polygamist. His first wife had no child. So, he had another wife. My mother had a girl as her first child, another girl as her second child, and a boy as her third. The boy’s name is Chukwunenye, which means, ‘It is only God who decides what you are going to have’.

He had me. I am the first child of my father. We were six children.

He had four wives.

I don’t know, but all of us had to obey the first wife. They (his wives) were all farmers.

If you know my age, you will know when I was born. When I was in Queen’s College, Lagos, somebody came from Nnewi (in Anambra State) and used to wear a big jacket called a tuxedo. He was in America but he came to give us a scholarship. I couldn’t go with the first set that went to America. I can’t remember where in America but I couldn’t go because, in those days, there was no railway, no airplanes. One had to travel overseas by ship and it took about three weeks to get there (to America). So, they could not take me. They said I was too young..

Obiageli was the name of my mother. She was a farmer. I can’t remember my father’s name, but he was educated. The person that rescued my father from slavery sent him to school. He worked in a bank. It was his uncle who didn’t go to school. They were all farmers. In those days when you got a job, you had to write the name of your next of kin and my father chose me as his next of kin, but people were jealous. They criticised my father for making a woman his next of kin. My father said that as his next of kin, I would be educated to the extent his money could reach but those who didn’t go to school were annoyed. In those days, women didn’t go to school. Schools were filled with boys because it was believed that girls were meant to be in the kitchen. But whatever a boy could do at that time, some of the women who could go to school did them. I was part of the first set of Nigerians who attended Queen’s College, Lagos. Then opposite Queens College was King’s College.

I went to England.

I studied Nursing. I was one of the first black people certified to return to Nigeria. I was also among the first Nigerians at the University of Ibadan (in Oyo State). When we got to UI, most of the workers there were Europeans and we faced a problem. When they were eating, we, the Nigerians, could not eat with them; we had to wait for them to finish eating. When they were going for night duty, they hired a vehicle that took them to the hospital at the university.

There were only two of us that were employed. We didn’t use the same vehicles as the Europeans. We had to wait until the vehicle returned to pick us. That happened in Ibadan.

I was posted to the children’s ward. The day I went to the ward, I saw a white lady waving a mirror back and forth on the face of a sick child. I asked her what she was doing with the mirror and she bent down and said, “Please, I’m not a nurse.” When I asked her who she was, she said she was a cleaner who was posted to the hospital by her husband who was in charge of the hospital. That made me angry because I was working under her supervision. So, I said I would not allow that to continue. So, from that day, I joined the whites to do whatever they did, including eating.

In fact, I became a rebel. So, one day when a vehicle came to pick up people working at night, I and the other Nigerian, a lady, entered the vehicle before the Europeans going to the Hospital came. However, I remembered that I forgot to pick up something in the locker. So, we came out of the vehicle and as soon as we did, one of the Europeans shouted, “Good riddance!” So, they drove off without us. We waited for the car to return and pick us but the vehicle never did. Later, we heard that the vehicle was involved in an accident. We heard that the vehicle hit a rail crossing the river and all the occupants, except the driver, fell into the river and died. I don’t even know how the corpses were buried.

I can’t remember the year.

W

Men were not nurses in my time; the nurses were all women. However, I employed male nurses when I returned to Nigeria.

When I returned from Britain, I got married. When a man came to marry me, my family didn’t agree. They said I was the first daughter to go to England, and that the man coming to marry her was from Ogoni. They referred to him as ‘Ogoni pure-pure’. They didn’t agree. They even broke their (clay) pot and asked if there was no man in Anambra State that I could marry. They said they didn’t know the Ogoni.

When they refused to allow me to marry him, I went to court. Yes, I went to court to ask permission to marry. So, I married (the Ogoni man) in court. In the morning I went to court to check whether anyone had objected to the marriage. One man objected and asked why he would marry me when he had a girlfriend. The man said I was so thin that he doubted that I could give birth to a child. Despite that, we got married.

I can’t remember the year I got married now.

So, my husband then was working in a Library. He was one of the first librarians in Nigeria.

I have forgotten, but I just loved him. Again, it was my grandmother who told them to let me go where I wanted to go. She even asked them if they were going to marry me. I think I fell in love with him in England.

My first child was Ngozi. She was born the day Ghana gained independence in 1957. I remember.

I had six children. Two are deceased. Four – three girls and a boy – are alive.

The first place I worked as a nurse was in Rivers State

I think it was in Ogoni land. When I went there, there was no Nigerian nurse, but I can’t remember most of those things. However, I became a chief nursing officer because there was no one as qualified as I was before Bayelsa was created out of Rivers State.

I can’t remember.

I have forgotten.

I can’t remember.

In those days the government didn’t owe nurses at all. They just inform you about your retirement and then give you your entitlement, even your gratuity. You did not have to ask for it.

I remember that one. When they paid me my gratuity, I used it to establish a maternity clinic and most people were there for delivery and treatment. When I left, I gave all my equipment to a doctor who is still working today as a consultant gynaecologist.

Yes, I still receive my pension.

It is N8,000. That is my pension now. When my husband died, about 20 years ago, some people stole all his money. Some of them (the suspects) are in prison. Some of them are paying back the money.

I don’t know about that again. Nigeria has been taken over by politicians who are embezzling money belonging to the people. That is what is happening, and crime is more common now than at that time. In those days there were no cases of kidnapping and asking for ransom.

When I went to Rivers State, I didn’t understand the language, not even now. I was just speaking English or Igbo to everyone. That is the first organisation I remember starting to bring all the women of Kono together. When they say women cannot do anything, I tell them women can do something. So I started Kawerelo. Kawerelo is 33 years old and is still there. I think somebody is still trying to do something about the Kawerelo Foundation.

I was one of the first to open a maternity clinic to deliver pregnant women and treat them. One woman came to my clinic and I didn’t even know she was pregnant. She told me that she had not seen her period for a month or two. The woman said she didn’t want the baby, and that she had been taking a lot of concoctions from local medicine dealers, but the pregnancy could not be aborted. She came with her boyfriend. So I told them I couldn’t do anything about it. However, I gave her medicine for the baby to survive. One day, a man drove his wife away. So I picked the wife and trained her to become a nurse. One day, she asked for one shilling. I asked her what she wanted to do with one shilling and she said she wanted to visit a native doctor. She said whenever she gave birth, the baby died.

There was no vehicle, no bicycle, and this woman wanted to go to a native doctor to see whether she could get a solution. I was driving a small car then, so I told her I would take her to a medical doctor, who at that time was in Bori (the headquarters of Khana) and was a white man. I was retired then. At the hospital, the doctor took her into the theatre and she had a baby boy by caesarean. The woman was crying, thinking her baby had died. She didn’t believe it when we showed her the child. Do you know what happened? She started working in the hospital. She was not a Christian so we converted her to Christianity.

I’m the first.

It means the ‘wife of Gbole’. Gbole was my late husband’s name.

I have pains, I cannot walk. I can’t see you, and I don’t even know who you are. My children take me to physiotherapy. They take care of me because I love them, I took good care of them and nurtured them. All of them have doctoral degrees in their disciplines.

My advice to you people is to trust God and His ways. If God does not build a house, you cannot build it. Trust Him in totality. Pay your tithe and do all He has said; then leave the rest to Him. I don’t do any evil to anyone, and I believe no one can do me evil or harm. Do some exercise and watch the food you eat.

I believe in God. How did I escape? It was the will of God. Those people were kidnappers or thieves. I don’t know which category. I didn’t even know they came to kidnap me. One of them refused to come. They said they came around during the day to find out if I was in or not. So they saw me and they went to the waterside to arrange a boat for my abduction. So when the boat owners understood their mission because they knew me, they refused to release their boat to them. They said I was generous. So the bad people (kidnappers) hijacked the boat. It was then one of them agreed to follow them. So when they came to my compound, there was a girl taking care of me. She understood only the Khana language. The girl came and told me that some people were looking for me, that I should go and hide. They beat the girl and injured her for not showing them where I was. I went and hid in the wardrobe. When I entered the store where I kept things, which was where the wardrobe was. I couldn’t close the door again. So the door was open and my dresses were hanging in the wardrobe and it was open. When they came in, they didn’t bother to look inside the wardrobe because it was open. One of them was surprised but said they saw me that afternoon. The other person said I was a witch and might have flown out. That was how they left. The only thing I will tell you is to trust in God. He is the only savior. Obey His word and do things right.  Please wait, my people will give you something to drink before you go.