It was in 1959. Mammy Ode, a young lady from Jericho-Ugboju in the present Otukpo Local Government Area of Benue State, was hitched to Anthony Aboki Ochefu, a youthful Non-Commissioned military officer, who had quite recently been presented on Enugu from Abeokuta.
They were quartered at the Army Barracks, Abakpa, Enugu. To beat inaction and maybe win some cash to help her young family, Mrs. Mammy Ochefu built up a sodas business. She arranged gruel, which is called umu or enyi in Idoma, or kunu in Hausa, available to be purchased to officers. She soon ended up plainly mainstream with her stuff as warriors trooped to her home to purchase enyi. Some of her best clients were officers, who constantly sent their batmen to get a portion of the gruel for them, Monday through Friday.
Some way or another, one of the Non-Commissioned Officers, the RSM, did not stream with the energy, which Mammy's gruel created among other military men in the garisson huts. He grumbled that the stuff was drawing in flies into the sleeping quarters and requested Mrs. Mammy Ochefu to stop its generation and deal.
Despite the fact that amazed and disillusioned at the request of the RSM, she ceased the creation and offer of enyi. Her husband, not being an officer at the time, couldn't challenge the request of the RSM.
For quite a long time, Mrs. Mammy Ochefu obsessed about the destiny of her business, similarly as officers and men of the Nigerian Army who making the most of her
enyi due to its freshness and wholesome esteem regretted the circumstance.
From a few quarters, tension built on the RSM for an inversion of the request. Before long, he capitulated to the weights and coordinated that a segment of the garisson huts be saved for Mrs. Mammy Ochefu to create and offer her enyi. Her bliss knew no limits.
Scarcely any days after, an area of the military enclosure was given to her. She assembled a little shop and soon, her business started to blast. The greater part of her clients reserved for their offers ahead of time. Before twelve, she would have wrapped up the accessible enyi for the day.
Before long, other ladies in the sleeping enclosure took advantage of her fortune and began offering different things. It was not some time before that part of the sleeping quarters ended up plainly known as Mammy Market. It additionally turned into an approach to build up business sectors inside or close military sleeping enclosure in the nation, at first for the restrictive utilization of officers and men.
Today, no visit to Abuja, the Federal Capital City, is finished without an essence of new fish in one of the Mammy Markets, particularly the one connected to Abacha Barracks. Comparative markets joined to paramilitary garisson huts are additionally called Mammy Markets.
After the overthrow that ousted General Yakubu Gowon, Anthony Aboki Ochefu, at that point a Colonel, was presented on East Central State as Military Governor.
So Mrs. Mammy Ochefu and her husband came back to Enugu as the First Family; she at times went by the site where Mammy Market began around sixteen years sooner It must be focused on too that in retirement, Colonel Anthony Aboki Ochefu and his wife consolidated an organization, Mammy Markets, which was into haulage and exchanging. Mrs. Mammy Ochefu is alive and lives at Otukpo as one of the prized legends of our opportunity."
Source: Maj Gen Kaleosho rtd, previous Comdt TRADOC
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