THE FATHER THERE IS A GENERATION OF MEN in Nigeria, born two decades before Nigeria’s independence (1960) and during the period of independence, they subscribe to the belief that labor, builds character. It is a principle that they place above all else and they are not wrong, labor does in fact build character – at least some aspects of character. No amount of labor has thought these men to keep it in their pants, not even when it invites more labor and hardship for them. However, I believe that something may have been lost in the translation or application of this principle by a good number of these men because somewhere along the line, the word labor was subconsciously substituted for masochism in their psyche until suffering came to equal labor in their minds. ( It explains for instance why these men consider eating three meals a day, living with your parents or attending school as the height of luxury). Tade was one of such men. Of the many snacks availa...
THE FATHER
THERE IS A GENERATION OF MEN in Nigeria, born two decades
before Nigeria’s independence (1960) and during the period of independence,
they subscribe to the belief that labor, builds character. It is a principle
that they place above all else and they are not wrong, labor does in fact build
character – at least some aspects of
character. No amount of labor has thought these men to keep it in their pants,
not even when it invites more labor and hardship for them.
However, I believe that something may have been lost in the
translation or application of this principle by a good number of these men
because somewhere along the line, the word labor was subconsciously substituted
for masochism in their psyche until suffering came to equal labor in their
minds. (It explains for instance why these
men consider eating three meals a day, living with your parents or attending school
as the height of luxury). Tade was one of such men.
Of the many snacks available to the Yoruba Man living in
Nigeria, one snack stood out above all others for Tade and he always purchased
it in bulk. His car and his room were in constant supply of it. Tade could
often be seen sneaking supplies of it into his room late at night; of course, this
was after he had spent a few minutes digging into the car supply after packing
his car. For Tade, bottled groundnut was the king of all snacks. It was cheap, tasty,
and portable and rats could not get to it in the safety of the bottle.
It gave Tade a certain pleasure to look in his rearview
mirror and see bottles of it jostling behind the headrest of his car’s back
seat as he drove. In a pinch, Tade would pour a handful into his pockets and
munch on it whenever he could not obviously carry the bottle around. In fact,
he once embarrassed his daughter by doing this during a particularly important
meeting with her class teacher who had watched in fascination as he munched and
crunched at it as they spoke.
One fateful Saturday morning as he lay on his bed, certain
thought struck him as he munched on his favorite snack: His children were soft!
They could not do anything by themselves; they could not wash clothes, sweep
properly or even farm even though the eldest was already nine years old. (Yes! All of nine years old; How dare those
kids who had never even seen a farm before not know how to farm!) This
irked him because at that age, he was already actively engaged on his father’s
farm. (Apparently, this meant to him
that their lives were charmed and privileged)
As dark as his thoughts were, he had no solution on how to
whip those kids into shape and so when comeuppance came calling in the form of
his brother-in-law, Tade dove in head first.
(Yes guys! I used the
word “comeuppance” which generally indicates just punishment. The thing is, in
Tade’s mind, the children had been having it easy and he had not as a child, and
whether or not he admitted it, he wanted them to suffer as he himself had. He
had been separated from his mother as a child, worked a farm and been one child
amongst tens of other children in his father’s home and his education might as
well have been the result of a lucky draw amongst two other competing kids)
His beloved brother-in-law, sold him on the idea of a
boarding school for his nine year daughter who was about to complete her
primary education in an era where the standard age for admittance into public secondary
schools was eleven years minimum. All he heard during the pitch was the cheap
fees, the location in another state and a farming program in the school.
He wasted no time in procuring all requested items,
prominent amongst which were a hoe and a cutlass – now that he went out of his way, to fund special order for delivery at
the school. He never thought to ask the question of why the fees were so
cheap or why they were willing to take on a child that had not written the
admittance exams for the school.
THE CHILDREN’S STORY
THERE IS A GENERATION OF PEOPLE in Nigeria, born between the
70s and the early 90s (especially the 80s)…
To be continued in part 2
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