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By Soji Amusan.
It is an irony of history that I am one of those writing tribute in celebration of the life of Mrs. Teresa Ojo, popularly called “Mama Tess” in the Travel and Tourism industry in Nigeria. I consider myself divinely blessed to have a place in the hearts of Nigerians of integrity, who are cultured, loving, civilised, humble, detribalised and quiet. Mama Tess was one of them.
I Went through surgery operations in two successions at a Lagos hospital last November as a result of a sudden life-threatening ailment. It was so serious that I thought my toll was due. Mama Tess got to know of it. She was very worried. (We had always been in touch with each other, even during her temporary relocation to the UK). She made serious efforts to visit me in the hospital but couldn’t, due to the coronation ceremony of her nephew as the king of her hometown in Edo state, and the chaotic traffic situation on the Nigerian roads, especially the notorious Lagos – Ibadan sector. All she could do was to call me regularly with comforting good wishes and offer fervent prayers. She showed deep concern. And fortunately, her supplications and that of many other well-wishers were answered. I was blessed with divine healing.
I was discharged from the hospital and moved immediately to the UK for further checks and convalescence. She did not stop checking on me, each time with prayers and good wishes. The last WhatsApp message I received from her was on Tuesday, 23rd April 2024, with snapshots of the coronation ceremony. Mama Tess would have loved to set her eyes on me just as I would have wished even more to see her after my discharge. Neither did any of us know that, that message was to be the final note for the two of us on this divide. Today, Mama Tess is no more. Her lifeless body was committed to mother earth a few days ago.
My first meeting with Mama Tess was about fifty years ago in Ibadan, when she made a debut into travel industry by establishing the Tess Travel Agency in 1974/75. I was then a Sales Representative with Lufthansa German Airlines based in Lagos, but had responsibility for Sales Promotion and Marketing in our so-called “Western Area”, which included Ogun, Oyo and Kwara States.
Mama Tess was humble, beautiful, decent, cultured and proactive. Apparently a disciplined no-nonsense lady. These virtues were all evident on my first meeting with her. That day her mien clicked with mine, a so-called “German Indoctrinated” airline professional, who had consciously imbibed a level of discipline, comportment and patriotism, much above the average Nigerian average.
By dint of hard work and dedication, Tess Travel Agency got the International Air Transport Association (IATA) accreditation on 5th November 1976, for the Ibadan location. She then became the 30th Nigerian agency so approved since 1947, when the first Nigerian agency was approved. Among the thirty such Agencies, Tess Travel was the third to be managed by a lady, as the business was then dominated by menfolk. Mama Tess was the role model that encouraged many ladies to compete with men in investing in the travel industry.
At the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of NANTA in 1993, Mama Tess defeated all the contestants (all males) and got elected as the National President. Thus, she became the first lady to reach the number one position in the association. That threw her into national and international prominence.
She was very passionate about the development of tourism in the country. She was an apostle of “incoming tourism” as a means of earning foreign exchange for the nation and creating employment for vibrant minds in the labour market. She contributed her quota immensely to reducing unemployment in the nation. She would organise tours to cultural and religious festivals in strategic collaboration with traditional rulers, associations and diverse groups from all nooks and corners of the country.
She turned the annual Muslim Salah Durbar in Kano to an international tourism event by developing eye-catching brochures of the festival and marketing the packages among your operators in the UK and elsewhere. She would charter airplanes and buses to convey groups of tourists to different destinations in Nigeria. Her Durbar packages included places like Daura and Katsina destinations. He made international tourists enjoy visiting our country. Mama Tess loved Nigeria. I remember one day in 1997 or 1998. The weather was so bad that no plane could depart from Murtala Muhammed Airport. Many passengers had to resort to traveling by road out of Lagos. It was only the aircraft chartered by Mama Tess for her passengers that got clearance to depart first and had to be requested to accommodate the then Minister of Aviation, Air Cmdr. Ita Udo-Imeh, who was to travel to the North on alleged urgent national assignment. It was a gesture done on the basis of patriotism. Tess had to negotiate with a Nigerian passenger at a cost to her for the minister got the free ride.That was mama Tess for you in her elements.
She personally visited many hotels in the North, especially in Kano and Kaduna to “lecture” on maintaining accommodation to meet international standards. She did the same in Ibadan and Calabar.
Ogun State also benefited from the passion she showed in positioning the tourist endowments of the state to be good enough to attract international attention. She made proposals to the government on the development of Olumo Rock for local and international tourism. It was her wish to see the production of Adire, a popular Egba fabrics and the development of an international market in Abeokuta.
Mama Tess had tourism in her DNA. Her agency was not known for selling flight tickets only. She was into real tourism. She believed that a resourceful agent could make good money, sometimes more than on ticket sales by organising package tours. She demonstrated it by example.
Mama Tess was ever ready to lend support to any effort, including intellectual, at promoting tourism. I published a book, “Travel Agency Operations in Nigeria – Historical Perspectives” last year. Mama Tess took it as her duty to find a good publisher for me in Ibadan, known in those days as the home of good Publishing. I could not get a better offer in Lagos or elsewhere. Her blurb on the back cover of the book, was as good as that of Anthony Kila, a Jean Monnet Professor of Strategy and Development on the same page. As a further encouragement, she suggested that she and I, should endeavour to co-author a book on Nigeria’s tourism potentials and its possible contributions to economic development. I wish I would be able to fulfill her wish with or without a co-author, in her memory before my own exit. But where is a patriot like Mama Tess in the industry to take her place! Who could be such a co-author, with consideration for posterity and not profitability!
Mama Tess, our humble and amiable princess, has gone to join her ancestors. Her body was committed to mother earth a few days ago. I didn’t have the opportunity to pay my last respect, which she earned. Painful indeed. However, I take consolation in the fact that she played her part well. She lived well. She died well. She left good memories behind. Her name will be written on the platter of gold..
My condolences go to the family, especially Wale, that I met last physically (not on TV) at WTM some years ago, his siblings and her numerous beneficiaries in the travel industry.
May the soul of our beloved mama, Princess Teresa Otieyeka Ojo, and the souls of all faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
Dr. Soji Amusan is a former Sales Manager of Lufthansa German Airlines, a former National President of NANTA, a former Assistant Director, United Federation of Travel Agents’ Associations (UFTAA), a former Co-Ordinator for IATA/UFTAA examinations for Nigeria and Cameroon, CEO of Alphafirst Travel & Tourism Academy and a Patron of Aviation Round Table (ART).
