The prescient December clues

When birth is due

December speaks of dreams and beauty, the surprise of my nativity which for me as a person was not earlier than I expected, especially when others tend to stay longer than necessary. I can remember the many times I have never needed to fulfil a quota; when what needs getting done is done.

To many, I was preterm. However, I was ready when I arrived, just after Michaelmas. That they brought in cavalry to sustain my arrival was a responsibility placed on those who cater for such things. I simply rode the wave because it was there for my pleasure.

If I had chosen January, I would have slipped into another year for which I could lament the inexplicable. The Hilary Term would never have suited me. I could hardly be considered a spring baby, yet, as provenance would have it, one was conceived in the Trinity Term.

Silent in the light

In the advent of the diamond jubilee, I have scarcely prepared much. I hope to mark it without much fanfare; I am exhausted in crowds and flailing in the company of many. It is something to celebrate without trumpeting, but I would scarcely be afforded that luxury.

It is a time for contemplation, reminiscence, thankfulness, and gratitude. The journeys, the companions, the supporters, and friends that have made it auspicious leave me astounded at the wonder and the gift of living.

Is Kemi Badenoch suffering a midlife identity crisis?

Kemi’s Nigerian baggage

Once again, Kemi Badenoch, the Leader of His Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition, is in the news, not for policy ideas on how she intends to lead His Majesty’s government, if she becomes the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but by defining herself against her Nigerian ancestry.

Her new tirade is about how she no longer sees herself as Nigerian, while how you identify is quite left to the individual. One can only wonder if our principal is suffering an identity crisis in trying to situate herself comfortably in the minds of the electorate she desperately needs to appeal to. [The Guardian: Kemi Badenoch says she no longer sees herself as Nigerian despite upbringing]

Gosh! A baby girl

The difference between her and me? I did have a childhood I vividly remember in the UK, born of parents who were students and residents rather than of a mother gaming the system for pecuniary advantage, the likes of whom forced the government of Margaret Thatcher to change the rules of birthright citizenship.

Kemi might protest until she is blue in the face that her mother was not engaged in birth tourism and consequently she herself was not an accidental anchor baby, but let us speculate on how having a medical doctor father in Nigeria, it was expedient for her mother to travel to the UK for medical treatment, and then she pops out in a maternity hospital, how convenient.

On the other hand, my mother was heavily pregnant with my sister, as anyone would have noticed in the last picture we took before boarding the plane on our departure from the UK. How things might have been different if someone had counselled my mother about the need to anticipate the opportunities Kemi now has for her then-unborn daughter.

Embracing all influences

I identify with Nigeria by heritage and influence through some of my formative years, but now, I have spent about 40 years living in Europe, and I do not define myself through the denigration of Nigeria as she does. When I was in primary school, most of us Black kids had foreign accents, and our schoolmate children of immigrants or expatriates in Nigeria mostly had Nigerian accents.

I am broadly European, even though I have a mastery of Yoruba and an understanding of Hausa. I do not pretend to know Nigeria that well, and I spent more time than Kemi in Nigeria, but left 35 years ago.

I'm affected daily by Nigeria because I have family and relations there, and a thriving and prosperous Nigeria is a comfort for all of us of Nigerian heritage in the diaspora. Yes, there are bad memories as there are fond memories, but it is in the UK that I have experienced muggings, racism, prejudice, and all sorts of attacks on the person.

I didn't live in the Netherlands for 13 years, trying to please the Dutch by putting down England or Nigeria, I embraced all influences that make up my third culture kid identity.

She needs a better narrative

In Kemi’s case, it is both political and personal, the need to constantly redefine herself in the context of Nigeria. If we set aside the circumstances of her birth through her mother for some unforeseen benefit as the story gets told, her pronouncements framed in a negative mindset about Nigeria are becoming unfortunate.

Eventually, someone is going to ask her what she intends to do in government and whether she can drop the Nigerian baggage she lugs around as a chip on her shoulder and see herself as just a black English girl who happens to have Nigerian parents.

I have no problems saying I am an Englishman with a Nigerian heritage and European influences, accent and all. More importantly, I am comfortable in my own skin; I dare say, she exhibits a form of self-loathing with an eagerness to belong and please.

Nigerians getting agitated by each outburst by Kemi are missing the point. The issue is not Nigeria; Kemi is still struggling with who she thinks she is, and well into midlife, she has not found a clearly positive narrative to embrace all the influences that make up her multifaceted identity.

58 revolutions around the sun

It’s a miracle baby

As times come and go, I realise I am a living miracle from the moment I took my first breath, with all the goodness and favour that has greeted me every waking day that has become the story of my life.

I am of all men greatly blessed, highly favoured, and extremely fortunate. Unexpectedly born at 26 and a half weeks at a time when it could have been decided I could not survive, even as the hospital in which I was born did not have the means to sustain me. I was taken to a hospital in another city about 25 miles away where I received the best care medicine could offer at the time.

An outlier to the convention

As a man of faith, every day whether acknowledged or not has had the hand of God sheltering and keeping me, through literally impossible situations, I can hardly count the innumerable blessings.

At another time, I was not meant to see my 44^th birthday, the prognosis gave me 5 weeks when the medical team in charge of my care made a diagnosis giving me the facts of the options before me. The good news depended on me tolerating the gruelling and debilitating chemotherapy for which I would be rewarded with more time.

Even medicine would prove me an outlier and the condition I had from studies at that time suggested the people did not last a decade. There were times I felt like a clock was ticking, it probably is the reason I hate the sound of ticking clocks. What was I learning from Captain James Hook in Peter Pan?

Living to live and thrive

Then, how have I measured myself against others thinking I will be limited by the experience of others when I was to live the life I am given to live and prosper. It is easy to live as if one were dying, yet there is a better story to live as one living and thriving regardless of situation or circumstance.

And here we are today, 58 revolutions around the sun, nothing I could have predicted or expected, it is all the grace of God, the prayers of many, the unstinting support of some, and the amazing love of Brian who plants a smile and grin that never wanes on my face.

I am full of gratitude to see this day and I believe there are many more amazing celebrations to come. In the stories I will write I cannot even begin to imagine the form or frame of words to narrate the miracles that astound as each day passes into milestones for which the praises to God will fill the mouths of many who love goodness, happiness, success, and joy.

This is my happy birthday.

Thought Picnic: Welcome November

A month of strain

Arriving in November with a bit of dogged insomnia, I literally spent the hours of reluctant wakefulness thinking about the month that had just passed. If I did not have a memory or a penchant for dates, seasons, and anniversaries, it probably would not have mattered.

For a long time, October was mainly a month of many celebrations, first of births of at least 10 in family and relations, then a wedding anniversary and four years ago added a death that doubled in the past week.

Not that I want to attach anything to a month, for time is more a structure for the reckoning of humanity that exists in a framework of unfathomable eternal past and future, the present being a sliding indicator on the scale of our limitless universe.

Significance in insignificance

The vastness beyond our world where the light of stars probably extinct long ago still appears to us in expanses of lightyears is just awesome. We are both significant here and almost insignificant as we attempt to chart galaxies we can only imagine exist but can’t reach limited by the knowledge and expertise we deploy in that research.

We lay our footprints in the sands of time and in the memories of how the relationships we forged are remembered for good or for bad. Yet, we only have the present with us as we progress into a future near and far with the hope that whatever becomes our stories are evidenced in having made the telling of them better. Welcome to November 2020 and the wonder it holds.

Thanks for the day

A day attached to things

The 20^th of September when it comes to dates is one that just happens to have offered itself up for association, whether it was 40 years ago when it fell on a Saturday with a housewarming ceremony and birth of a cousin or 18 years ago; a Friday, when that dreary morning I was visited with a medical result that changed my life.

The 20^th of September becomes a placeholder, something to set focus on in the midst of many distractions, like every other day, yet, one that by arrangement heralded a new beginning, by expectation ushered in a new life and by accident revealed a new prospect.

In all, what is means is one new opportunity to give thanks for the house still stands, the lady does thrive, and we are still here as a new year begins the count to the next.

 

Thought Picnic: Learning to live well for the end

From conception to reception

When I went to Walsall, the place of my birth in July, it was for two reasons. For the memories and for the memorial.

I fulfilled the first but only thought of the second. I called my father when I was in Walsall just to have a conversation that drew from the well of memories left unstirred, and when he heard of where I was, he asked if I was writing my life story.

I am writing my life story, but I did not tell him that one of the reasons I returned was to find a place to rest when my days are done too.

Let’s live well

The last thing I would ever want is for there to be disputes about where this vessel would return to nature when its use is exhausted.

We are not there yet; we are alive and well, with many thoughts on living and one consideration on leaving. For how many secrets shall one carry to the grave and to what extent shall one rue what could have been if we could alter the course of events today.

For when you open the book to read my story, I hope that the open book I have made of my life in the things I have written would become a shared experience of living well even under the threat of death. Just let’s live well.

The Memories of a Castaway

The farewells

One bright morning just four weeks after returning from a business trip, he returned to the airport, with a one-way ticket in his hand.

The check-in was easy, and the absence of that pregnant customs officer who seized his passport just six weeks earlier asking for a handout was a great relief. He wondered whether the corrupt during gestation brought forth more corruption upon the earth.

It took the wiliness of his travel companion then to retrieve the passport after he palmed her filthy grubby hands with illicit silver.

His friends gathered, and he recollects, "we hugged and shook hands before we parted ways waving goodbyes without tears."

Bye for long

The scheduled take-off time had moved, and it was another five hours before they finally took to the air and one last glimpse of home became a distant memory of almost 23 years.

The boy is lost to one home and found in another home, affinities split between homes of ancestry and homes of birth, the latter bringing more satisfaction.

However, the passage of time comes with the experience of events and the news from afar of tales make sad songs a refuge for a season.

Lost for good?

What the boy has not suffered too badly is nostalgia, he can be removed and be placed in another place and another time to adapt. He has learnt to bargain for the best deal than challenge for the indifference of a rotten deal.

His people are growing older, his links are growing weaker; weighted down at times in seething resentfulness left unaddressed by conflicts that go back decades, all fondness suffering a contemn.

Sometimes, he really cannot be that bothered anymore, they have parted ways for so long that technology is just a tenuous link leveraged for convenience.

The boy is lost and not looking to be found.

Walsall: A place from my past

Connecting with a past

One week in July, I decided to make a journey to a place I first saw when I was born, then last went to some 18 years ago.

I have an affinity for Walsall for so many reasons, many childhood memories and even though it is possible my early birth was consequent on the stress of my parents moving house just two days before from London, it just presents a sense of exclusiveness that one was not born in London.

For the way Walsall is pronounced, many confuse it with Warsaw but I was not born in Poland and hence I have to tell people it is near Birmingham if they know nothing about the geography of England, West Midlands or the Black Country.

Seeking ghosts of the past

However, as I arrived in Walsall, I thought I would try to trace a family I once knew. Her kid sister always took me boating at to the Arboretum, she, the big sister was married to a family friend and they had two girls who I last saw in 1978 in Nigeria before they separated and she returned to the United Kingdom with her girls soon after.

Searching through registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, with just the knowledge of the name of the family friend who was married in England, I was able to obtain the maiden name of the sisters, then their dates of birth, the second marriage of the elder sister and then the trail ran cold.

The pleasures of the past

For the week I was in Walsall, I visited the places where we lived; all still standing buildings saved for posterity whilst on the other side of the road, the old row of houses had been demolished and replaced with new buildings.

One place I wanted to see was the Arboretum, it had a boating lake and I remember beaching my boat the last time I was there, but when I got there, it was quiet, no boats and the only life on the water were ducks and swans.

Apart from being a park and conservation area, a place to probably meditate, what made the Walsall Arboretum fun had been taken out of the place because some years ago a boater fell in the lake and drowned.

A boating tradition of decades going back in my memory to the 1960s of the enjoyment of life and happiness ended by reason of an unfortunate incident before the health superintendents waded in and decided this simple pastime was unsafe.

Holding back the day with the past

My view was erect a memorial for the dead, put up signs and warnings but do not take away the pleasure, though it is suggested the mismanagement of the place and insufficient funds might have been the death knell for that kind of excitement.

I walked around the park, took many pictures but the idyll that Walsall once represented was no more what I saw, I was saddened and crestfallen but the desire still remains to be laid to rest in the town of my birth.

Places change, people move on, history becomes a series of yesterdays stretching back in time and the moment is what we have to enjoy what is there, Walsall remains dear to me and the memories I have of the place might fade but will never be forgotten.

The kid sister who at times was baby sitter, chaperone, governess and big sister has a name that exemplified the enchanted childhood – Joy!

Thank you, Walsall.

My Walsall Slideshow.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Ìrírí - How our brotherly love could have blossomed

Pre-term brothers

Just a few minutes ago, I ended a conversation with my father that took us down memory lane with comparisons of realities of life that left me in surprise and shock bordering on rage.

There were many stories but the one I never knew was about my half-brother who before he received a given name experienced the misfortune of being born into an avoidable situation exacerbated by systemic failures in Nigeria.

My half-brother and I were born over 40 years apart, in literally similar circumstances but in different lands. We were both prematurely born, he arrived at just over 7 months, I arrived in 6 and a half months, somehow, we were delivered in maternity homes without facilities to cater for the prematurely born that we had to be moved to better equipped hospitals and that is where our stories begin to diverge.

Our separate lives

On the cold morning in 1965, after I was born, arrangements were made to move me to a major city hospital where as my father recounted to me, I had all the hallmarks of royal treatment – spacious, well-ventilated room, with nurses and medical personnel at my beck and call, I did not lack for care, comfort or succour – I am 47.

My half-brother, let’s call him Ìrírí (Yoruba for experience) was born in Ibadan which at one time was famed to be the largest city in Africa along with many firsts.

He was rushed to University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan the premier teaching hospital in Nigeria where a philanthropist had previously donated 6 incubators to the Paediatric Unit to cater for premature birth.

Five of six, down

Ìrírí arrived to find that five of the incubators were out of commission but was fortunate for a few hours to have the only functioning incubator temporarily vacated for him to at least have a fighting chance to lay claim on a Nigeria of our dreams.

However, alternative arrangements had to be made for Ìrírí, so when he had stabilised, the decision was made to transfer him to an incubator installed in the private practice of one of the UCH consultants, also in Ibadan.

Ìrírí made it to that practice but at the same time, he became an everyday Nigerian at the mercy of too many things out his control. The incubator was vacant and available but the public electricity supply was down and as if fate had colluded to deprive Ìrírí of an inalienable right, the backup electricity supply could not be provided because the generators will not start.

Ìrírí rests

So, Ìrírí mustered all the strength he had to survive, he wriggled and writhed, panted for breath, desperately hoped that his heart will hold out and many other organs that were not fully developed for earthly experience strained at the limits of their ability without the support they all needed – after trying so hard, they decided this earthly experience was not worth it.

There, Ìrírí drew his last breath bidding the earth farewell but leaving a most indelible mark on the lives he has touched for the short while of just about 36 hours that he was with us – over 40 years after Akin was born in England, Ìrírí could not survive similar circumstances in an independent Nigeria in its 6^th decade.

Time, manner and place

Then my father drew comparisons between Ìrírí and myself; as a poor student just about to take up a job in a sorting office for Christmas, I was born just 2 days after they had moved house, my mother’s labour probably brought on by the stress of moving house, I had the best of facilities provided at no cost at the behest of the government and here I stand.

Back in our home country of Nigeria, everything had to be paid for and it made no difference to the outcome, the experience was harrowing, the prognosis was dire and either as a microcosm or snapshot of the Nigerian experience, the short life of Ìrírí exemplifies so many things that are just not right with Nigeria.

The premier teaching hospital in the country had 5 out of 6 donated incubators out of commission, this does touch the matter of pre-existing incubators or what might have caused a philanthropist to make those donations.

Murder by proxy

Then the matter of usage and maintenance that led to the failure of the incubators that none of the management thought it prudent to either seek new funding from the donor or go on a fund-raising drive which contributed to the murder-by-proxy of Ìrírí.

I do wonder what the philanthropist would have felt if he learnt that the equipment he donated to the hospital had fallen into disrepair that the purposes for which the incubators were acquired could no more be served.

Then think of the many like my dear Ìrírí whose experience of this world was truncated by a system that serves nothing but rank incompetence, mismanagement, corruption, malfeasance and worse.

It ought not to be so, but that is one of the realities of Nigeria today.

Dear Ìrírí, Rest in peace, my half-brother, Nigeria did not deserve you.

My own history began on the 21st of December, 1965

Words and names

As I was told a few years before, I really was not expected the day I arrived and I did not get to go home until two months later.

Meanwhile, the somewhat accidental parents set about preparing for my arrival home and not three weeks after, the Registrar of Births and Deaths in the Walsall First sub-district typed in four names the first from my paternal grandfather, the second from my father and the third from my mother and my surname - meaningful and interesting as I began to master the Yoruba language.

Yes, I was a boy born on the Twentyfirst December 1965; the date was spelt out in words on the certificate of birth and thus began the documentation of my history.

Thank you all

So, today, after a time that has been eventful as it has been interesting, I find myself, 47 years young thankful, grateful, blessed and favoured in more ways than I can find words to express.

For the life I have lived, for the successes I have seen come and go but with undiminished hope of even better things to come, I have much to be happy for.

I have family, relations, friends, acquaintances and well-wishers who have sustained me through times that many hearts would have failed to see through, I have people who believe in me, people who trust me, people who lift me, people who praise me and people who honour me, all beyond anything I could ever deserve; why would I not be full of gratitude.

And thanks again

To God the strength of my life who gives me reason to expect beyond what I can imagine, I thank God for my wonderful 47 years and I thank you all for celebrating it with me – all your messages have been amazingly comforting, your generous help has been more than timely and for each year I get to see the glorious 21^st of December again thank you for being my friends.

I am still standing – Cheers!!! 

Thought Picnic: The Birthers have begotten a stillborn

The nasty movement

It is necessary to pen a few words on this matter because the micro-blogging forum of Twitter will just not suffice in offering a considered opinion.

For almost three years there has been a campaign contesting the eligibility of Barack Hussein Obama to be the President of the United States in that he is not a natural born citizen amongst other disputable claims.

That fervent, virulent and aggressive campaign became ignominiously named the Birther Movement. There is no doubt that this apparently innocent and curious search for documentation of Barack Obama’s birth, birthplace and circumstances of birth had nasty racist undertones that left facts in the wake of the sensationalist element than brewed from this non-controversy.

However, it became a controversy on which many were willing to stake their reputations all with the assurance that they were onto something and something really big.

The Donald

As many reasonable and fair-minded people grew disgusted even after tons of unimpeachable research showed that Barack Obama was indeed American and eligible to be president by reason of all evidence provided some were just unpersuadable.

Then Mr. Donald Trump, a multi-bankrupt wheeling and dealing real estate maverick billionaire who would give the creeps to the creepiest things came in the fray and basically launched himself into the murky cesspool of the Birther Movement with the prospect of topping the ticket for the Republican Party.

He made you sick to the extreme as your stomach churned with perplexed disbelief as he lurched and scraped at the person, the integrity, the education and the office of Barack Obama.

Trumped

In what is a masterstroke of class and resolve, Barack Obama had instituted proceedings to have his birth certificate released for public viewing to put the silliness to rest, once and for all.

In my view, that matter was unimportant but when some people decided to make a mountain of a molehill such that it had become an unnecessary distraction from the more pertinent issues of the day the reputations of the incautious, the blabbers and the megalomaniacs must take an irredeemable beating.

I would hope that Donald Trump for all his influence and money gets shut out of polite company as he eats humble pie in perpetuity with the label that he lacks sound judgement which should extend to all other areas of his exploits.

The lesson to take from this is one advice I would give to my worst enemy, “Don’t ever cross Barack Obama.” His silence must not be taken for stupidity, his coolness cannot be taken for cowardliness and his patience simply presages a ruthlessness that is deserved by those who fail to exercise good judgement.

Those who sat on the fence on this matter should suddenly find themselves tethering on the edge of an abyss that is the bosom of the extreme lunatic fringe – Obama is no cuddly pussy cat by any stretched of the imagination.

Reference material

Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

White House Releases President Obama’s Long Form Birth Certificate « FOX News Radio

The Certificate of Live Birth on request (PDF)

The long form Certificate of Live Birth (PDF)

Analysis: Behind Barack Obama's decision to disclose his certificate

Having a sense of fun at 45

Giving thanks a year on

I just read a blog I wrote exactly a year ago and realised that much had changed to that time and much more had changed today.

A new day of reckoning has come, one in which to offer gratitude as a year of long days, which had longer hours and the longest seconds, has past like it was just yesterday.

I write giving thanks to God, to my ever amazing neighbours, to the ever considerate medical staff, to my ever sustaining friends far and near, to my ever supporting family and relations and my ever expanding network of colleagues, acquaintances and what do you call that Internet-based list of the many people who have given, commented, elicited and sometimes abused me on my blogs, Facebook or Twitter?

You all gave me strength, helped my will to live, given me scope to express the joy of living and much more that words fail me in expressing.

An imp colouring my beard

And to what do we owe this day of thankfulness than to the fact that another bleak winter day like the one in 1965 has come again and lo and behold, hardly in a manger and not expecting wise men because it is too foggy to see a guiding star, the boy is 45.

I allowed myself to go unshaven the other day and noticed in my sleep someone had been colouring each strand of hair of my growing beard grey, mischievous imp, wait till I catch him.

I have moved into that bracket of age-based surveys that allow you to tick the box 45-54, I am going to enjoy it as I contact those many others I share this day with, Rachel, Rosalie, Jan and not forgetting Marie of fond and blessed memory.

On this day

Many things have happened on this day as far back as history can record the year of four Roman emperors, the fourth being crowned on this day in 69 AD; and if you have ever been stuck in a crossword puzzle, the first was published in the New York World in 1913; Apollo 8 took off with the first manned mission to the moon in 1968 and sadly a bomb went off on a plane over Lockerbie in Scotland 1988.

An interesting day to be welcomed to earth and you can see what else happened on this day for your entertainment since many would be not be here to share my wonderful day with me for all sorts of reasons.

Thanks and I love you all, you all make my life such a wonderful living story. Did I just take a call from my mum at 2:51AM? Yes, we are that peculiar and have fun too.

White and African and belonging too

My Economist

This morning, I picked up a tweet from the Economist, somehow, I seem to go through the weekly newspaper online long before I have physically flipped the pages of my print edition.

Suffice it to say, I am usually behind on catching up with the topics covered, it had to have been a case of prescience that I took out a two-year subscription in January 2009 to end somewhere in May 2011 without realizing I would experience a brief famine of opportunity and means not long afterwards.

The tweet - @TheEconomist: The short sad life of whites in Africa http://econ.st/9Aj5GZ - To which I added the comment - A story that also must be heard and seen.

Africans – black & white

Considering how Black Africans have “suffered” at one time under whites, one might tend to not consider the plight of presumably white Africans – but without too much controversy, it is arguable that independent sovereign black Africans are suffering badly under their own African leaders.

This is not to stir up any controversy but to assert the fact that there are white Africans who have claim and affinity to Africa than some of us who are African by reason of race, birth, custom or residence.

Putting aside the squabbles of land and resources, in a world where documentary evidence might well count for eligibility and entitlement, some whites in some African lands might be able to verifiably trace their lineage back many more generations than our black oral histories can muster – I fortunately, had a great grandmother into my 20s, she had a narrative that allowed a plot back of 6 generations from mine.

More African than I

The other day, some 15 years ago in an office in Kingston-upon-Thames, South-West of London, I heard my name called with a Yoruba perfect accent, the “N” is a bit nasalised but rarely emulated by non-Nigerians.

I turned around and was startled to see the lovely white girl who had a deeper Nigerian accent than I could ever attempt to jest with who was born in Nigeria, spoke Yoruba fluently – she said proudly, she was Nigerian by birth just as I would have said I was English – beyond the many white schoolmates I had in primary school who were Nigerian it was nice to recognise the kinship across races.

Then again, I remember another instance where a white colleague said he was more African than the 4 other black Britons of Nigerian heritage – I promptly concurred whilst the others took umbrage, considering hardly any of them could speak an African language nor had they experienced much of anything Nigerian in their lives.

Well, he was born in Kenya, he had lived in at least 3 African countries, visited 9 in addition to that, spoke Swahili, managed a bit of passable Yoruba and Hausa and bantered with corrupt African terms that made me almost too colonial to appreciate – I was beaten on that track, he was more African, period.

Loving Africa by choice

Going back to the Economist story, it is not the first time that the presumed Messianic white person has tried to do something in Africa and come to grieve at the hands of the natives – to excite passions flippantly – just as Dian Fossey comes to mind, she chose to make Africa home in the course of her research.

Another in the commendable class is Susan Wenger who became the custodian of the animist grottos of Osun in Nigeria, being one who for all intents and purposes has helped maintain those customs against the onslaught of religions that portend to declare our traditions inherently evil.

They belong as we do

We have to accept that we have ordinary white Africans who are just like you and I, who have every right to freedoms, justice, due process and consideration, just as we who proclaim for those of the black race in Africa.

They should not only be looked at in terms of colonialism, land-grabs or foils for feigned liberation struggles masking rotten leadership and corrupt – they also belong in Africa and like everyone would fight for their little piece of Africa than gives them a history and heritage.

In the end, it does not matter what colour you are or if you are in a minority, if you have a claim to be African, as anyone elsewhere might well have a claim to be who they aver they are, then you are welcome as an African brother and fellow citizen of our amazing global village.

Sources

Dian Fossey - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Susan Wenger, Adunni Orisa, Dies at 83

Susan Wenger, Adunni Orisa, Dies at 83 - Worldnews.com - Videos

The day I was born

Springing a prayer for offspring

Chatting to my dad yesterday as he congratulated me on my birthday with incessant prayers about my getting married and having children in his lifetime, I was on the verge of getting emotionally blackmailed.

Indeed, one is press-ganged into the henotic and obligatory amen in response to every stanza of required, desired and unwanted prayer, I would suppose the ones answered would be the ones in which we are in agreement – it would appear the exception clause I invoked sometime ago has lost its potency.

Ask daddy first

As the conservation went on, I asked, since I had only heard most of the information second-hand, what really happened on the day I was born, some 43 years ago, even though I also spoke with my mum, I was not sure asking mother would elicit any appreciable response apart from the memory of the agony of labour; only in exceptional cases should such an enquiry be made of the mother.

What transpired was an amazing review of differences and changes between then and now, my father’s memory was quite keen and I listened with rapt attention.

What really happened

Quite early on the 21^st of December 1965, my mother felt some discomfort such that she arrived in hospital with my dad around 2:00 AM, nothing was expected because I wasn’t really expected; but my mother was kept in for observation whilst father returned home.

When he woke later that morning around 7:00 AM, there was a telegram under at the door announcing that he was the proud father of a baby son born at 3:20 AM; he danced for joy and went immediately to the hospital. (Telephones were not in most homes then, a telegram was the fastest way to get messages around in those days.

By the time he arrived at the hospital they were already expecting him, his consent was required to have me transferred to a teaching hospital where I could receive more care as I was born at least 10 weeks early.

He said I looked so small, not quite bigger than a hamster, when a name was desired he suggested Young Akintayo for the meantime until when a name arrived from home in Nigeria. (In the Yoruba culture, the child is not named until the 8^th day and the parents usually defer to the elderly generation of relations for given names.)

Waiting around the incubator

When I was transferred he enquired about what should happen to his wife and he was told she could return home with him – hardly anyone knew she was pregnant, talk less of having a baby that was now some 30 miles away in an incubator.

She was back at work within a couple of days, though the Christmas holiday allowed for them to share my first Christmas with them as visitors but not being able to come too close.

I eventually had a room to myself with a nurse taking care of me morning, noon and night – to which a cheeky friend alluded the Genesis of my liking to be waited upon, apparently, it had always been part of my survival, if not upbringing – don’t know where people get all these silly ideas from.

Anyway, I was in an incubator for 2 long months before I could go home by which time I was much fully developed. He also noted that I was one of the very few boys born into the Nigerian community in the West Midlands then.

Good job! England

My father surmised that he was both grateful and impressed with the attention and care lavished on my fragile being to keep me through the early critical hours to the point when I was ready to leave for home.

That little hamster in a time when the father was not necessarily in the maternity ward holding hands, when telegrams were the quickest messaging system, when the mother was back to work almost immediately and you could trust the hospital to do all to preserve life is now 43 with not one iota of littleness about him.

What a story, the story about the day I was born.

The matter of tying the knot

We speak now

I was chatting to my father the other day, one of those New Year’s Considerations I had to get over with.

Sometimes, I wonder about why our relationship has been so estranged as a result of a process of growth from childhood to adulthood and independence rather than some particular seminal event.

I suppose up to a point, the patriarchal survey of my father had tried to envelope my sometimes antithetical views which at certain times of expression simply created conflict.

Now, though I have many years ago been in outright conflict with my father, it only lasted about 8 months during which my mother secluded from an outrage that was about to consume me because of my failures.

Eventually, we made up and he actively participated in my rehabilitation for which I am very grateful. When the successes came, he was the chief cheerleader and though he upbraided my mother for not making preparations for the celebrations, I really felt that duty was left to my mentoring auntie and uncle who took over the responsibility of seeing me through my toughest years.

Leaving from the chapel of love

One topic that has been dusted over and over again is that of marriage, he has the opinion, I am scared of the issue and hence, I have not settled down.

The fact is, I did once seriously consider marriage and that was just under 20 years ago, the lady and really the one lady that caught my attention then had me in dreamy spires – Oh! What could have been – but I did not pursue it far and time overtook everything else.

I am as settled down as I want to be, maybe not as happy as I would like to be but grateful for what I have and glad to be able to count my blessings.

Incy-wincy spider at 40-plus

Then, I saw that advertisement of a lady who instead of starting a family had a very successful career, but strikingly she noted that children of old school mates as she reminisced where now coming out of university and she and her child had only started on incy wincy spider [1].

I believe that advertisement was to encourage women to start families even if they have had fulfilling careers, because motherhood also had its fulfillments – I took from it that idea that I could be still raising children as an old man.

In the background someone was attending to the toilet requirements of a half-brother that was hardly three, nay, nay, three times nay – I have been sold completely on loving the kids of others and giving them back when I need my peace.

This, considering that by the time my parents were my age, at least two of their children were out of secondary school.

Premmies hardly procreate

No, the matter of marriage and children fell off the burner a long time ago and I have spent a lifetime encouraging my parents to accept the notion that I am settled with the encumbrance of happy families with little running feet.

I would not use the next issue to corroborate my situation, but it makes interesting reading about the lingering effects of premature birth predicated on the likelihood to drop out of school which I did not do and the unlikelihood that they would bare children [2].

Born at 26 and a half weeks, I do not think I had any serious developmental problems apart from growing my feet a lot faster than my age group and having an astigmatism that was not properly diagnosed till I was in my twenties.

I was a year below the average age of my class in primary school and was always in the top three apart from the last year when I was away for 4 months doing entrance examinations and still came out in the top half of the class.

In secondary school, I was just under 2 years below the class average and still held positions well above average amongst my peers. I do wonder if studies like this would dare to explore predispositions to particular traits including that of sexuality.

Accepting the situation as is

It does not bother me that much really, I told my father, we need to begin to appreciate that there are exceptions to the idea of marriage and kids for certain people and somehow that exception happens to be closer to home than is comfortable.

Besides, in what might sound rather cruel though not expressed, I cannot say that I have many role models who have attended to the institution and sacrament of marriage with the determination of a life-long inviolable partnership to one partner.

Marriage has its purposes and I am a supporter of the proponents of marriage to the extent that I care less about whatever sexual pairing that makes up that family unit of love, devotion, commitment and responsibility.

Indeed, one does crave companionship but in many ways those relationships have fallen somewhere between a soap opera of unmentionable antics to the shrill cacophony of an opera coming to its final crescendo.

I have probably become an onlooker and observer of the kisses and hugs that sometimes get expressed as hisses and shrugs – I look away from the worst parts of something really good that has turned too bitter for taste.

Citizens of different classes

The conversation then skirted other topics as my career and other activities and then that issue about living in the West and how that must affect me adversely.

I could understand that when my parents were in the UK in the 60s they came against a number of unpalatable issues with racial tension and war going on at home in Nigeria.

It lead my father to say at one time that living here left me in a position where I could be treated as a second-class citizen; an interesting view where in Nigeria being treated as a so-called first-class citizen security and safety were at a premium as well as the gauntlet of corruption I had to run through to get anything done.

Beyond the race to success

My memory served me well because my father passed his accountancy examinations winning the Faulks-Lynch prize in 1969 – Cannot find any record of it now, but it appeared in his listing for the Men of Achievement – he appeared on television and suddenly all his colleagues who were generally condescending grew in admiration and respect for him.

In some ways, achievement and success trumps the unsavoury rudiments of racism, I wish the situation were better but like I have written in another blog, see those situations as an opportunity to educate rather than be offended – hopefully, a quick wit would see you through it all.

In any event, it was a big first step, as we exchanged pleasantries and talked at length. I know that the matter of marriage would not die a natural death, but like I told him during our conversation, he gave me an education that allows me to speak my mind – I think our conversations would sharpen my ability to express myself better on matters I feel strongly about in a man-to-man and father-son heart-to-heart exchange.

Other matters of the heart that could unsettle him are not in the purvey of what I view of settling down.

Sources

[1] You Tube – Incy wincy spider

[2] Study: Premature birth has lingering effects - USATODAY.com