By Odolaye Bàá Waki Aremu

Somehow, I knew he was going to die at about a year before he eventually passed on. I cried all night that last time I visited him. For an all time strong man, his slow pace and shaky voice were indications that my beloved father was pretty much living on borrowed moments. The sudden realization that he wasn’t going to live forever hit me in the gut like a sledgehammer.

Since I am naturally swift at doing things. I took advantage of the moment, I cried all night! Cried all the way on my long drive back home. I wept more at home and I tried to promptly separate myself from the impending sorrow I foresaw about him. Hard, but I did it. Glad that he lived well into his fulness and dealt with no chronic illnesses. Much as kids wish long life unto their old folks, they hate to see their folks in the decrepit states of old age at the same time. Because I had cried ahead of time, I saved myself the wailings and gnashing of teeth that usually follow the typical Nigerian funeral rites.

My father was a fantastically complex man but he somehow made himself quite easy for me to read like written words. Alàgbà Lérè Paimọ stole his looks and demeanor – particularly that penetrative glare and them sharp features. He never could dance though – but still could have easily passed off as my father’s much younger brother or one of his first cousins. Gloomy in appearance but sweetly made in his core. The exterior was designed like a steely fortress to keep the unwanted away from his very soft underbelly. He smiled awkwardly and he lacked the instincts to waywardly show his true emotions.

He walked me to the house of a bully that broke my plastic bucket ages ago at Orita. A Calabar boy that terrorized kids in my hood with impunity. Mbong was his name. My father, in his 40’s at the time, kicked their door in while he was having breakfast with his family. He proceeded to drag the father out, then made a circle around me and Mbong. He commanded me to start fighting with him.

He instructed me to throw the first punch. Yes I did without the slightest fear! I fought my best fight that day because he was there. He instructed me in that husky voice of his never to come back home with him if Mbong defeated me on that emancipation Sunday! I never knew I had any fight in me till that morning! To my amazement, I gave the demon Mbong a good ass-whooping and from the corner of my eye as I tackled the son, I saw my dad slapped the dad around too I guess for his lack of supervision and the unleashing of his demonic spawn on the neighborhood! I will never forget that day!

A folklore in my family now. A forever legend.

Several years later, one of his greedy business partners with powerful connections got him detained at Ikoyi Prisons just to corner their lucrative gigs to himself alone. They got him arrested on a Friday so he wouldn’t be free until Monday. I stubbornly parked myself at the front of the imposing Prison – under that huge Baobab tree overlooking the huge, wrought-iron gate – painted in dull green.

 I made sure I was the first face he saw on that fateful Monday when his release came through and he walked out of the said huge, depressing, ugly gate. I prostrated fully in the presence of my father, he bent over to pull me up, his voice cracked as he narrated how some of the warders told him I was out there. I remember how he, with misty eyes lovingly, called me by my special name he gave me. He said they told him I refused to leave.

Leave to where? The truth was: sleep nor joy wouldn’t find me anywhere in paradise with the agonizing fact that my dad was somewhere in captivity for no just cause. He prayed as he wept and he wept as he prayed for me. His body quivered vigorously. His essence as he hugged me tightly suddenly became mine in that instant. Though he reeked sorrowfully of prison and its hideous nature, I didn’t mind because he was my dad, and it was pure joy to be in his warm, old embrace regardless. Needless to say that his freedom was mine too. And his captivity deeply affected us both.

 His missing front tooth somehow gave him the reverence I never noticed before that day. I have thought about it many times since. I think that was the day I jumped ahead of the family queue to secure my blessings in the same manner Jacob usurped his brother Esau to Isaac’s blessings. The striking difference here is that – there weren’t bowls of hot porridge involved!

Yes I think! I am pretty sure!

Some of the warders found that scenario quite emotional. Some of them with deep cultural understanding and the significance of the moment joined in and fervently prayed for me as well. Some of them actually wept with him too as the sight of a mistreated dad showing appreciation to his son was kinda rare to them at their duty post, I guess. To tell the truth: I saw nothing extraordinary about a son standing to fight with a father who once stood to fight with him too in the days the puny boy was afraid or lacking the necessary inspiration to fight for himself!

Yes!

O’Theo my father of grim nature but the softest of hearts! I have been everywhere and I have been in all kinds of trouble, but I have a sense that some of your prayers and the good thoughts from strange people have been the consistent burst of wind given to my courageously strong wings to swiftly take flight every time. So far, I am yet to be ensnared in the worrisome nets of the wicked. Perchance they get me, I wouldn’t waste any time to suffer myself but count it as parts of my beautiful destiny – for redemption cometh soonest. It is only a measly dawn away from a bright daylight.

Because I seldom talk about you doesn’t mean I have all forgotten about you. When we put you down, everyone cried but not I. For I already cried and shed my tears for you ahead of time! You weren’t the world’s best dad. You were simply the best father Providence had locked down for me – for the world is just too large to ever split you with anyways.

Ìjẹ̀bú ègbòrò, ọmọ awúre f’àṣẹbẹnu! Ọmọ Ìrókò ṣangiliti lójú ọ̀gán!

Godspeed!

Odolaye Bàá Waki Aremu, a Satirist writes from Ibadan