What is Papae and Mamae in FECA?
Emma Onyemaechi • 4 February, 2022
365
Most of the time, in some FECA chapters, the word that is used o describe the president of the chapter is Papa and the vice president is called Mama. This is very conventional. But what is not conventional is the fact that some other chapters have coined a sweeter version of the title. They call their presidents, Papae and their vice presidents they call Mamae. As for the origin of the duo terms, no one knows for sure, but the pattern of address is very familiar in many FECA Nigeria Eastern zones, like in Enugu Zone.
Of course, the first time I heard of the word, I was wondering what that meant until I asked someone and she explained to me the meaning of Papae and Mamae. I laughed and said, "that sounds nice" and then I began calling the president and vice president Papae and Mamae respectively. Because the names are easy to recall and utilize, easy to pronounce, and thus one cannot forget it in a hurry. Most of the time, past presidents and past vice presidents who have served in the chapter are still referred to with the same title even after they must have left, and so there would be many Papaes and many Mamaes. For this reason, when talking to someone about a particular president, in order to distinguish the personality involved, one would add the name of the president after mentioning the word, Papae. An example is a statement like this: "During our 2020 reunion, Papae John Onuorah was present and I also saw Papae Temple Losa with his new wife!"
But, what if a lady is the president and a young man is the vice president in the chapter? How do we call the persons involved with the titles? This can be very confusing, and probably difficult for someone to understand. Like me, the first time I was told the title of the female president and the title of the male vice president, I did not remember it. In fact, I totally did not get the idea. But with time, I was able to grasp the full meaning of the titles. So the title for the female president of a chapter in FECA is Pamae and the title for the male vice president of a chapter is Mapae.
