Former President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife, Dame Patience, were among callers to the Ikenne residence of late HID Awolowo on Wednesday, to condole with the family.
Accompanied by former Ogun State Governor, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, former House Majority Leader, Hon. Mulikat Adeola and Jide Adeniji, among others, Jonathan said the deceased epitomized the virtuous woman described in the Bible.
The Matriarch of Awolowo dynasty and Yeye Oodua of Yoruba land died early hours of Saturday at the ripe old age of 99.
The former Nigerian leader noted that death is inevitable, but said it was a rare privilege on the part of Mrs. Awolowo to have added extra 29 years to the Biblical “two scores and 10 to her years on earth”.
Jonathan said he and his wife like other Nigerians, will greatly miss the nonagenarian, stressing that the late HID Awolowo was a “rare mother”.
“Death is an inevitable end that would come when it would come. So, we know it would come for all of us one day. Here we are today, we have been coming here because the former secretary to the government did mention that the last time I came here it was associated with the last presidential electioneering campaign.
“But I have been here severally before to see mama in one way or the other. We are mourning her today, me and my wife, we are not mourning because mama has passed on.
“For me, we believe that it’s a rare privilege to add extra 29 years to the Biblical two scores and 10, it’s not easy. Ordinarily, we wouldn’t have been mourning, but mama was a rare mother.
“She was a woman of virtue described in the Bible and she was a mother to all of us, a mother that her milk of kindness we still need, her milk of encouragement we still need, her milk of advice we still need and today she’s no more with us”.
