Ten years after, Timi Alaibe remembers wife, Alaere

To those who knew her at close range, the visage of Alaere Augustina Alaibe keeps hitting them in the face as if she were still alive. Her alluring expression was very infectious. But all that disappeared 10 years ago when she passed on.

Every January brings back sad memories for the former managing director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), reminding him of his loss of Alaere to lung cancer in January 2009, leaving behind five kids and women who benefitted from her benevolence and philanthropic activities, through her Family Re-orientation Education and Empowerment (FREE), an NGO designed to help the women of the region resolve the development dilemma confronting them and also help them become literate and empowered. And to celebrate her, Timi held a special thanksgiving in her honour.

Having risen to the echelon of comparative intellectual and material wealth in her society, Alaere ensured that others tapped from that wealth. She was not given to the showing off or needlessly bossy approach of the high and mighty in dispensing favours. This, no doubt, shaped the simplicity of the happy home she shared with her husband.

Alaere, though born in Lagos, hailed from Torofani in Sagbama Council of Bayelsa State.