A great man, we've lost

A tribute

The realisation dawned on me like a lightning bolt, shock, utter shock and sadness engulfed me as I scrambled to ascertain, to confirm and to understand.

I have been incommunicado due to issues unfortunately beyond my control but social media today plays a role in the communication spectrum of our lives that we cannot ignore. Much as we hope to keep things traditional, this is where I have learnt of things of joy and things of sorrow too.

A brilliant star, a shining beacon, a light in the firmament, excellent, generous, wonderful, affable, reliable and a man much more than a mentor has gone into the irrefutable annals of time.

He blazed the trail of uncles whose academic brilliance could not be ignored, those who could ensure the doors he needed were opened did so; he gained access to the full potential he went on to fulfil in many numerous ways.

As an inspiration and as an example, he counselled, he admonished, he advised, he helped and never once did he withhold praise and encouragement, I never once heard a word of criticism from him, just words of positive reinforcement, time and time again.

When I was left without the means to access one of the biggest opportunities in my life, I paid him a visit, and it was sorted out, he was just that kind of man, he brought fun, jollity and experience to situations that lifted your sights beyond your circumstances.

Homely, lovely and true, I treasure and cherish those memories that will never be forgotten. Saddened at his demise at such a young age, he leaves a legacy of goodwill, of example, of accomplishment, of success, of integrity, of honour and of principle that many much older can only aspire to.

To a great man, a man of achievement, a man with vision, who fulfilled his mission – cometh the time, cometh the man and history is made of the stories of the footsteps of men like him who did well and touched the lives of others after them, lifting them up to do well too. For Uncle Jimoh Ogunnaike.

Adieu! Requiescat in pace eternal. 

Childhood: My aunts saw red

They were with us

As we settled down in Nigeria we never were a nuclear family, we always had relations most especially paternal relations staying with us as my father was somewhat a patriarch and pioneer of sorts, later on, it was friends and cousins.

When we were in Jos, my uncle affectionately called Unculu had moved with us from Kaduna, then my aunt, my father’s kid sister and his niece who was much older than my aunt.

The deluge of ridiculous names

One interesting Yoruba culture that probably still persists is that when a wife is brought into a family, the wife never refers to any of the younger ones she meets in the new host family by name.

As a sign of respect or deference for being a new inductee which probably paints the wife as a rank outsider, each person gets a name or nickname they cannot refuse and are known by for the lifetime of the marriage in most cases.

My uncle who we affectionately called Unculu and I think I came up with that name for him was called Eyin Afe (Which I think translates to having the teeth for a good life of enjoyment), my aunt was Modesty; I thought that was after Modesty Blaise and the father’s niece was Idi Ileke (Connoting ideas of Nubian beauty with a waistline of strings of beads).

The more people the wife had to name, the more ridiculous the names became, in fact, for names given in Yorubaland, they were probably the most trivial and meaningless set aside for traditional purposes separating blood relations of the feminine sex from those who had become relations through marriage.

Catching up

I remember a conversation I had with Unculu when he was 22 and I was 8, always playful, friendly and giving me lots of his time – I asked if he could wait from me to catch up to him at 22 – I suppose, it was just a sign of how much I adored my uncle.

Elopement from terror

The girls, my aunts had a tougher time; there was always the fear that girls might get involved in all sorts of unspeakable activity that they were given the impression that their lives would become unliveable if they got entangled in anything of a sexual nature.

My father, gave them the strictest upbringing and he was a disciplinarian of the order of a sadist to my little mind – in all the time I have incurred his wrath, I have never experienced any of the punishments those girls had.

Idi Ileke was well passed puberty and was put into vocational training to become a seamtress, I would suppose whilst she was busy sewing zippers to dresses someone took her fancy and in one of the most distressing times for the adults in my family she eloped with the man.

It probably took a few days to find her, at which time, my father had had enough and he sent her back down south.

I cannot say if she eventually married the man, but we never did see much of her after that.

A mattress ripped apart

Modesty was the younger, I think she was just about 7 or so years older than I, saw her eldest brother in shades of light that would represent terror, fear, anger, violence and control.

Again, in Nigeria, these shades of light were supposed to be read as signs of respect from the protégé and the mentor saw this fear as deference and exacted control as a sign of love – bizarre as it sounds.

When she first tried learning Hausa, it was so funny to hear her completely off accent as she started counting from one – diya, biu, uku, hudu and so on.

But the most tarrying times for her were when somehow my father found that her mattress had been ripped probably by using a blade and he could not get to the truth about how it had happened.

The Spanish Inquisition was visited upon her with tortuous punishments and my father never got any closer to the truth of what really happened – we all heard the cries, the noise, the howling and so on, we were just as terrified and dreaded any circumstance where my father would ever have to be so un-nice to us.

The sweet fruit of tattoos

The cashew fruit tree on grounds was a tree that grew into some sort of shapeless both artful natural thing, we could sit on its splayed out branches and it never grew into anything tall. In season, its fruit were low-hanging; I could just reach out and pluck the fruit.

Versatility of the fruit was revealed when I found out that pod-casing on the succulent fruit could be harvested and dried out for cashew-nuts, however, before the pods were dried out, there was a sap that could be applied to the skin which was used for tribal marks.

Modesty then applied some to her thigh that spelt out her name – over the first few days it blistered, it became septic and then it dried up, healed, leaving an indelible black mark representing the letters of her name.

A whisker away from death

It was then that my father found out and all hell broke loose for her – I saw her lay face down in an incline, her feet on the side of the cupboard and her hands on the floor. She was flogged in that position till I think my father was exhausted.

Could men be so capable of dishing out discipline in that way and still be human with the excuse of preventing the child from having a life less ordinary?

But these are the kinds of rights and authority our elders and seniors in school had the liberty to exercise on us without being accountable to anyone for their actions.

In fact, people were lauded for being this sadistic in the name of discipline and I have read many obituaries where part of the eulogy included a phrase like “strict disciplinarian”, a euphemism for be a brutal brute with a merciless streak all couched under the impression that it was all for the good.

Between discipline and torture

In all, I suppose, there were always a fine line between discipline and brutalisation, in many cases, I have seen parents seriously brutalise their children whilst believing it was just maintaining order through discipline.

The fact that the grown up children still bear physical scars that the parents were probably too ashamed visit the hospital and seek treatment for belies the feeling that parents sometimes never think they can inflict grievous bodily harm on their kids because they love their kids too much to see them devoid of punishment.

This is where I would sometimes agree with the lobby against hitting children because the few times I have been struck across the face in anger when it would have been better parenting to smack me or ask me to do some mean task just shows many parents are confused about discipline, order and control.

They did what they knew

Again, on the whole, my parents did their best, and parenting does not come with manuals or certificates – I am still proud of my upbringing though hindsight does indicate that maybe some things could have been done better.

My uncle and aunts went on to live their own fulfilled lives, sometimes fearful of big brother, sometimes in awe of big brother and over time, big brother has become cuddlier, lovelier and well fatherly-er? Modesty stayed with us till she got married some 8 years later, Unculu had left 6 years before.

Childhood: Driving the languages of sacrifice

Unculu drives

Continuing those stories of childhood down memory lane where I left off weeks ago. My father had moved to Jos to take up a new appointment with the Amalgamated Tin Mines of Nigeria.

My uncle who we have for long lovingly referred to as Unculu had joined us in Kaduna and I remember the many evenings when my mother took him out to teach him how to drive - suffice it to say he did not pick up that skill for another 8 or so years.

By which time, he bought a car and my father was so scared that he was going to brag his way with a drive to his office hardly 3 kilometres away - though we could see the office from our house - followed him so closely, it was almost illegal. Well, Unculu had really learnt to drive in some secret place and was doing quite nicely, Thank you.

Gave up much for us

When we were in Kaduna, my parents had both worked at the Kaduna Polytechnic, I believe my mother was also a lecturer there before we moved to Jos, because when we returned to Kaduna a few years later, at least 2 of her old students visited us as my mother proudly announced that her erstwhile students are now doing very well with their careers.

One has to be very appreciative of our parents and the sacrifices they made to keep the family unit together as much as possible.

Having left a lecturer-ship in Kaduna, my mother ended up as a secondary school teacher, not to far from where I went to primary school and she majored in teaching Commerce.

It is commendable in some ways how women in matrimony have given up promising careers and prospects for their husbands and family - what saddens me is when you get to talk to them and you sometimes hear regret about what they would have wanted to do but never got to do.

The lesson we could learn from this is to be able to have some hindsight that is not too far away from where there is still time to go after your dream.

Speaking in tongues

The many years she had spent in the North before meeting my father came in so useful, she was just as indigenous as the natives that she was referred to as Hajiya - a Hausa woman who had been on Hajj - well; my mother is quite a devout Christian and over time has become a true Nigerian polyglot.

She speaks her native Yoruba, which is spoken in the South-West, then having lived in the North for 23 years in total, is tongue-perfect in Hausa and fully conversant with their customs, but I was quite pleasantly surprised that she had mastered an Igbo dialect spoken in Eastern Nigeria without having ever been there.

I am sorry to say, I do not have the mastery of learning languages as my mother, I am quite good with Yoruba and really improving my Hausa in a way, even though I am not in Nigeria - I have no grasp of Igbo at all.

When it comes to languages, I suppose I am more like my father, he took radio and instructor-taught classes of Hausa and never really made much progress with it. His early attempts at Pidgin English were funny to say the least - he always has had an impeccable command of English - when I was younger, I could remember the number of times I needed to check out a word in the dictionary then the whole thing sinks in.

Mother-tongue of something else

I suppose one interesting thing about languages is that my mother-tongue is not my mother's mother-tongue, mine is English, it being the first language I could speak and still is the language my parents use the most in communicating with me - Yoruba rarely creeps into our conversation.

As I reached 10 my parents tried to engage me more in learning Yoruba, my best score in secondary school where the language was compulsory for the first 3 years was 38%, this was after years of being forced to read the Psalms into water in Yoruba rather than the easier English.

Much as I try, my command of Dutch is still rudimentary, it is still quite Double-Dutch and each time I string together a sentence to the hearing of the Dutch, I might as well be a clown because it brings laughs of incredulity rather than understanding - what could I be getting wrong?

The people are high on opium - III

My uncle is another example

I explore further my Muslim heritage. As you will recall, I paid tribute to the religious pragmatism and tolerance of my paternal grandfather. My uncle, who is my father’s kid brother, also took up Islam.

My memories of him are quite fond, I even remember when he celebrated his 22nd birthday asking if he would wait for me to catch up; I was just coming to 8 then.

I have not in anyway matched the fondness, love and dedication between siblings that my father has with my uncle, they may not worship each other but they are certainly close and do really look out for each other.

My uncle also took after his father in marrying a very beautiful lady with a strong Christian background. In their case, the children both had Muslim and Christian names, however, only the first son; now of blessed memory took up Islam.

Exceedingly worthy of emulation

My uncle in his demeanour is probably the friendliest, approachable and considerate Muslim gentleman I have ever met. He defers, respects, acquiesces and concurs with disarming humility that conveys strength where nominally one would expect weakness.

Selflessness in consideration for others dictates how he sues for conciliation and peace in soft-spoken tones that appeal to reason and common-sense. It makes him an unwilling mentor and more so, a person exceedingly worthy of emulation.

This man lives out the qualities and essence of being a Muslim; in whom one would find no bitterness or rancour; a person who exercises self-control and comportment in all circumstances.

The sacrifice – faith and belief - personified

On the maternal line, I also had cousins who with a strong Muslim heritage through their paternal grandparents. In that setting, I participated more in the Muslim festivals which during my secondary school days fell during term time.

The main festival involved the slaughter and preparation of the sacrificial ram which re-enacts the sacrifice that Abrahamic sacrifice of his son, Isaac; at least the context is that Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son in the service of God.

God’s acknowledged that selflessness by providing a ram to replace Isaac on the sacrificial altar. The same selflessness in service to God is required of followers of Mohammed’s doctrine.

However, that should also be viewed in the light of Abraham’s complete personality and conduct which allowed him to belief first and then exercise faith in God being able to revive back his son; if the sacrifice did take place.

Blades for rough hairs

All of us got involved the preparations; after the Imam from the mosque cut the throat of the ram, we had to shave the ram before the butchering of the flesh.

This involved making a tourniquet round the neck and then from a slit in the back legs, after clearing pathways with a stick, the carcase was filled and bloated with air like a balloon.

This made the skin taunt allowing for soap to be applied for shaving the rough hairs, by holding the blades with fingers as the shaving stick.

I think, I was quite a dap hand at the job; it was an activity I relished.

The silent majority of reason

The Muslims I knew then, at home and at school, would hardly have been part of the fracas that occupies our streets around the globe.

It is however, unfortunate that they constitute the silent majority of reasonable and likeable Muslims. Their religious diet definitely does not consist of opium.