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Surviving These Times
If you lose your parents early in life, without them tidying up the simplest and complex details of life that’d impact on you negatively or positively, without them helping you to navigate the murky waters of life to a great extent, to […]
If you lose your parents early in life, without them tidying up the simplest and complex details of life that’d impact on you negatively or positively, without them helping you to navigate the murky waters of life to a great extent, to guide you through the turbulence that are wont to come, to tell you that even if you lose everything, they are here for you,
Even if nobody ever look you in the face to tell you, just know that you’ve just become disadvantaged. You’ve become a target for cheats, liars and manipulators. The list is endless.
I’ve been grossly unhappy for a couple of days starting from the 15th. Each day, I wake up and ask myself ‘when will this endless dragging come to an end? When will my head/heart 💓 be just plain free from turmoils and start to do duduke duduke😊?
How can all these things be happening to me right now that Tito yoghurt is even 1k? (My heart is so expensive/inexpensive to maintain, Choi) What will I use to bring back my heart back to a duduke state?
On Mother’s birthday, the 15th May, we won a preliminary objection challenging the judgement of a high court in the land tussle that I’m presently embroiled in. That’s the court case I’m involved in.
They sued. I didn’t sue. It is not supposed to be my case technically. It is my father’s property and the document bears my mother’s name and I’m the direct heir to said property, that makes me the liquid metal facing the war😟. This isn’t even funny. All I wanted to do was just #survivecovid# not #survivewar#
So the next thing is to file a notice of appeal. You know, it’s a different thing to sit in court under a judge and be calling matters and leading people into the witness box, giving them the Koran or Bible to swear with. And it’s a different thing to be the one who has to be led like a lamb dumb before his shearers to the slaughter. A case of when the hunter becomes the hunted. It’s only that I truly do not deserve this.
I spent the better part of that day, four days ago, speaking for hours on phone. After thanking lawyer for his success at the high court that morning, he told me something that murdered my sleep.
“If I am going to file this notice of appeal within seven days and get the enrolment of order for the previous one, your bill is 25k. And my bill for the total appeal when it starts and court appearance is 1.5M.
Wait!!!! But, I am not the lion himself. I am not the war. I am not pahose. Where is that money going to come from? I don’t even want to go to war.
Lawyer claimed he is charging 1.5M and if not, he cannot proceed with appeal. We spoke for close to one hour and there was no headway.
But I had told this lawyer before now that I wanted to settle out of court. He said they were not favorably disposed to settlement. Oh fine.
I called my mother’s son and said to him ‘please let them go and carry that house/land. Let them take it alongside the people that are buried on it. If the lawyer refuses to file his notice of appeal, let him not do it, mbok.
Just because, the Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. The world and they that dwelt therein.
It’s indeed a very heavy cross. I’ve been on this battle for a year now. And I don’t truly deserve this.
As this conversation was happening with the lawyer, I was getting dragged in a slander, a maliciously repulsive outright lie and blackmail by a narcissist, a chauvinist with an over exaggerated sense of self importance.
I was like “oh devil, not today again please”. But, the devil’s advocate didn’t come to play.
Something went off in my brain. Alarm bells began to ring. I began to get to that point of no return when you’ve reached the wall. That point that you tell your foe that whatever happens now is not my fault after you’ve tolerated their mischief long enough. But it was all in my head. It was in the way my eyes turned red. It was in the way I laid awake at night, turned my back to the wall like Hezekiah and spoke to God about it.
You see, my parents are the principal partners in this matter. They are the witnesses and the main players. But where is my evidence today? In the grave.
I imagined putting a call across to dad and saying
“Dad, remember that time I ran away from Mummy O’s house at Airport Road because you made a decision about my future I didn’t reckon with. Remember how you begged me through endless texts and asked me to come back but I refused. I defied you only once in my life and it was over that issue, well,
There’s a false allegation because of that and you aren’t here.
Mom,
Remember that time that dad asked you to plead with me to go to Abuja with him after I vehemently told him I was done with that process in Lagos? Remember how you called me into your room at almost 4am and talked to me only in a way a mother could. And because you can easily get anything from me, I conceded.
Remember how you tried to convince me in order to sway my decision over the despicable situation of 2014 and I told you that even if your mother, my grandma whom I loved so much ever woke up and told me to change my mind, that I wouldn’t listen to her. Was that not when you hands off and told Dad same?
Well, four days ago, I was slandered because of it.
That slander was so ghetto, outrightly repugnant and ridiculously insane. It made.me.fear the human nature.
I’ve had sleepless nights asking myself ‘how did I get here? how did I get involved with something so ghetto? how did I get involved in a froglike and masquerade situation-frogs like to dance in the mud and masquerades tend to dance naked in the market square for clout.
All I wanted was just to #survivecovid# not #surviveslander#
So, after ruminating over and over, I told myself ‘let us come to the conclusion of the whole matter- Fear God and obey his commandments, for that is the whole duty of man😊😉
So, in order to preserve my sanity, which by the way, I’ve been struggling to keep in place to survive Covid 19,
I started waking up at midnight to dance and jiggle my body for one hour just because-the hallelujah challenge.
I’m releasing these burdens and as usual, moving around like everything is all right with the world.
P.S if you must dine with the devil, please for your own sake and your children’s, use a very long wooden spoon.
Mom @ 60
My mother was eight years younger than her husband. But she had more foresight, strength and power than him. When it came down to taking long term decisions that’d determine the future of their children, building a house or buying a car, […]
My mother was eight years younger than her husband. But she had more foresight, strength and power than him. When it came down to taking long term decisions that’d determine the future of their children, building a house or buying a car, my mother was the head of the family 😀😀😀 and I will forever stan a queen. She was not a yes woman. She was a woman of steel, a god.
My father would never have had anything to his name, not even a house or a car. He believed so much in education and in training his kids. Not this alone, he believed in living life to the fullest. And this he sure did. Papa enjoyed his life so much that I still envy him. He staged the best parties ever. He bought choice clothes but not lands.
There’s a story dad told me few months before he died. Of course I knew the story but he was talking fondly about mother this very day, with a twinkle in his eye and some pride in his voice.
“One day, before I got back from Lagos, your mother had called the bricklayer, a carpenter, painter, architect and asked them to give me estimate. She only invited me to the meeting. I was shocked but I had no choice than to play along. That was how she made me build my house. That’s also the reason why I put her name on the documents. That house belongs to your mother, nobody can drag it with you”.
This was the day he told me where he kept the house documents and that my mother’s son, the dark one knew where he kept it.
The story is that dad was never serious about having a house. We lived in a rented property for a long time. While all his friends were moving to their houses, dad was never impressed. After spending on education, which he did superbly, he spent the rest on frivolities or things that appealed to his taste.
One day miraculously after much prayers, he came back and said he got two plots of land. He bought only one plot and the other dashed to him by a certain prominent man. We were happy. They went to check the land and it was at a good location. But that was where it ended. Dad simply moved on with his YOLO life and forgot about it. Mom begged and nagged but he wouldn’t agree to even do a foundation.
So, she soon retired from NIPOST and what did she do? She got her gratuity, marched to the land, called that meeting I explained earlier with builders in tow. That was how she singlehandedly started the foundation. When dad saw that she meant business and was building, he stepped up and began to pump money into it. They did the house in three months and moved in. At the time they moved, everything was not in place. But mom said she was no longer going to stay in a rented house, so she woke up one day and packed. I was in school when they called that they had moved. Imagine, leaving school and having to trace your new house by directions.
It was mom that facilitated the painting, decor and furnishings of the house. Infact, I had to give her kudos. She did it bit by bit. You’d just come back from school and meet a brand new drapery or kitchen cabinet or TV in your room. My mother had plenty sense.
Years before this, she called me into her room at the usual 4am for a serious talk. She wanted to buy a car since her husband was an unserious man😀. She badgered him, begged and did all she could but he wouldn’t budge. He didn’t mind standing by the roadside in his police uniform waiting for a cab. My mother thought it was shameful. So she asked me to borrow her the 55k in my account. I had just finished secondary school that year.
Her first car was a Mazda 626 and when Mom bought it, dad’s eyes became clear. He began to beg to take the car out. He began to drive it round town. Later, he got an official car from his office, a golf. It was after this that he got a Mercedes Benz. But mother must always lead the way before he wakes up.
I don’t think marriage favours women in Africa and Nigeria. Apart from the burden of raising children while the husband walks free or is transferred from one state to the other, the woman still bears the blame if anything goes wrong. Her husband takes credit for all her hardwork and labour. I don’t think this is fair.
My mother was a storm, that’s why she gave birth to a riot like me😀.
Because I’m not a yes woman too. Nehi!!!
My sister is a yes woman, a Ruthie kind of person. But not me. It irritates me when a woman is a yes woman.
Who is a yes woman? A woman who doesn’t have an opinion. Who waits on her man for everything. Who runs with her husband’s decisions even when he’s clearly leading both of them into the ditch. It’s a woman who can’t look a man in the face and say ‘no, we won’t have it your way. We will do it the right way. When you are ready, follow me, I will take the lead. They are women who fear their husbands. They struggle to be accepted. They don’t want him to be annoyed.😁😂😀 O lagbara gan
How can a lion give birth to a cat? Impossicant!!! I am a cub.
She would send everything from ibadan including pepper and locust beans. She would tie money discreetly in the bag without letting dad know. She would then padlock it and ask him to give me the bag and key. She gave me 50k the year she died when I went home for Easter and she told me “don’t ever be sad even if you aren’t working. I will always send you money every month”. While in school, she used to call us aside and add to whatever pocket money we got from dad. My mother was a republic.
You see, this is why i can’t cut some people any slack when I see how they treat their kids. It irks me because we were all that mattered to our own parents.
My mom would have been 60 on May 15th. And we would have rolled out the drums. Except for Coro. Coro would have spoilt it but we would have postponed it.
Mother really suffered after having her first son. That story always broke me whenever she told us. She was carrying the boy from place to place when he had a strange ailment months after birth. Her own health suffered for the latter part of her life. No, I can’t tell my mother’s story.
It’s too painful and it will break me. I remember staying with her at UCH, sleeping on the chair checking on her whether she was still breathing or not. She was our backbone, a shield. When she died, I knew the shield had finally been taken away and it was only a matter of time. I was scared.
Life really played a fast one on me. It made me so disadvantaged. Many of life’s battles could have been easily fought and won with my mother in tow. Many decisions would have been long taken and executed. Life would have been a lot easier. I go to ibadan and hang in my uncle’s house. Home is no longer home.
She died on a Saturday night. And it was tough. I went to my then neighbor’s house and we were praying together thinking she’d wake up. She didn’t come back.
What was Mr Banji without my mother? He was just a man without bearing. She brought the bearing to his life. She brought the achievement. She gave birth to the best kids. What would have happened if she didn’t have us? I really wonder.
If you see a child who lacks motherly presence, you’ll know because it really shows in their life. They are so disadvantaged. People even try to cheat them(those people always pay for the rest of their life though).They don’t find it funny. They leave some important parts of their life unattended to. They become careless. They take anyhow decisions.
That’s why Jonathan Eze looked at me one day, shook his head pitifully and said ‘who advises you? Who keeps you in check? Something is wrong with you o and you don’t know”. He’s an hediot sha. I told him that yes many things are wrong with me and that I own my madness.
Yes, I’m taking all of my life’s decision all by myself, without holding consultations and I really don’t care if it pleases anyone or not. I have become the garrison commander of my own affairs, so deal with it.
I can’t really continue this write-up because I’m broken already. But I may talk about how she advised/influenced me in getting a job in a subsequent post which I will title “Job Chronicles”. Let me go and cry first 😞😓😢😰😟😕
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Raising Entitled Kids (Part 2)
This is an adaptation of my memoir. It’s about 3450 words long. Brace up for a long read but you will enjoy it👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆 Dad thought I was his mother. He kept telling people, you see that my quiet daughter that’s always in […]
This is an adaptation of my memoir. It’s about 3450 words long. Brace up for a long read but you will enjoy it👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆
Dad thought I was his mother. He kept telling people, you see that my quiet daughter that’s always in the room reading her book, she’s my mother. She took all of my mother’s nature. My mother was a very quiet woman.
I’m trying to talk about how favoritism started and I’m continuing from the last post.
I don’t think favoritism can ever go away in families. Because sometimes, it’s an unconscious thing and it’s not the fault of the parent or the child involved.
Take for example, you have your teenage child in SS2 walk into your room and say ‘dad, I just won a scholarship and they are going to pay me. I need to open an account with UBA.”
“Who are these people who gave you a scholarship. How did you do it?”, By then, he sits up on the bed, looks at you in utter shock and disbelief, wondering how a girl who doesn’t go out can win a scholarship from her bedroom.
“Dad, it’s from President Obasanjo”
“What?????????”
“Yes. And I applied when I saw it in your newspaper”
Or, on another occasion, you walk up to your dad and say
“Dad, please can you take me to Lagos?”
He laughs, looking at the skinny 14year old talking about lagos.
“You think Lagos is easy? Lagos is not a place you can just go to. Why do you want to go to Lagos?”
“Well, I just won an essay competition and I came first in all the southwest states in Nigeria. The event will take place in Allen Avenue and my prize is 50k.”
Dad struggles to rise up from the bed. He begins to yell and call mother, telling her to leave everything she’s doing and come quickly. When they are both settled, he says, repeat what you just told me.
That was the first time I ever set foot in Lagos. When we came down at Berger, I began to look for the magic on the street, I thought Lagos was London with the way it was so hyped. I got to the popular Allen, and it looked ordinary. Lagos disappointed me but it welcomed me with open arms and before long, dad was sent back home and I was lodged with several other students across the federation in an hotel and by the next day, I was on the news. Dad and mom came back the next day in the morning. The event was slated for 4pm at Muson centre so they went back home.
You see, all these events set me up as a Joseph with a coat of many colours. So dad became an advocate, saying ‘where’s Yetunde’s food? Is this the small meat they gave you? Come and take my meat.😁😁
Or he begins to shout at his younger kids who love to play football. “Can’t you see your sister always reading in her room? Why can’t you be like her. Emi n so temi o”
Those ones began to hate me unconsciously😁😁
He began to make open comparisons. He told visitors, family members, his colleagues at work, anyone who cared to listen such that those who never met me already knew so much about me. However, he never knew that all I read in my room were novels and newspapers, not even school books.
He eventually began to drop his newspapers with me after reading and if kidbrother or the dark one picks his newspaper (na only the football page at the back dem dey find), he would shout at them-“is that your book? Have you finished reading all the books I bought for you?”
They will see him walk into my room afterwards, drop the same paper and turn back. They saw all these things.
I was a picky eater. I was(still I’m) the skinniest in my family. So, while my siblings never had a problem eating Amala, iyan, iresi it was a problem to me. So, he would get me Milo, milk, fruit&fibre/coco pops and say ‘go and keep it in your room. Don’t let them see it.
He began to say ‘dont let them see it’ when he noticed that my siblings could also throw me into a tubu or sell me to the Egyptians just like Joseph.
One day, the fair and dark one broke into my room while I was away in school and stole my provision. They did it angrily and they left footprints so that I’d know.
I got back home and cried. Dad called a family meeting. The two for them, myself, mom and dad. They were not sorry. They complained that ‘everything was all about me’.
You see, he always gave them a baba Sala Milo&Milk too but the boys would finish it in one week and come for mine.
I was a rich kid growing up. I always had money. And I started earning from my writings at 13. 50k was big in 2001. I stashed it in my UBA account like an abacha loot. My previous scholarship money was in this account as well.
When Mom needed to buy her first car, she borrowed from me. When there was no food at home, I bailed the family out. I started taking all these responsibilities as a young, rich teenager.
In my part five, dad needed to travel from Lagos to Port Harcourt and his DTA hadn’t been paid. He called me. I had an exam by 2pm. He called me by 1.15pm. He needed like 20k. Flight was between 8-10k those days.
I stood up from my bed where I was reading Parasitology and Public Health, Par 502 and travelled to First Bank Taki to pay into his account. First Bank was and is still notorious for long queues.
I saw the manager of my hostel on the way while I was running towards college of medicine on foot to get a cab. He said ‘where are you going under this hot sun’
The sun was really harsh that day. But I didn’t mind. My dad comes first. I can’t let him be stranded in Lagos.
Because manager wanted to be managing me and was completely smitten by me, he turned his jalopy around and asked me to hop in. He drove me to first Bank and later dropped me in school. I never told dude that I made him drive like Jackie Chan between Adenike to General-Sabo-Apake-Taki just so I could send my dad some money. I even thought it was shameful. Who sends money to their dad to buy plane tickets as a student? I never told anyone. I miss Ogbomoso sha. But our office is at ilorin maybe I should get a transfer to ilorin and start living at Ogbomoso.😆😆😉
I paid that money and went straight to the exam Hall at exactly 2pm. My heart was beating fast. To God be the glory, that was the day the invigilator chose to come late with answer scripts. We started 30mins later.
When I was in part 3, dad would call ‘there’s no money or food at home’. I would go and send 2k to him. My pocket money was 5k. So I’d be having 3k left but it’d never be hard for me to send him 2k and hold 1k till the end of the semester.
While dad was at Ikoyi, that bougie part of Lagos and I was at Isolo on IT, dad would call me ‘yetunde they’ve not paid salary. I’ve not even had breakfast’
My salary was 7k but I’d remove 4k and send to him. Going out of my office was like a camel going through the eyes of a needle but I would go to Mr Ola’s office and say ‘Sir, there’s an emergency sir. Pls, I have to go to the bank sir’ . Then he would give me a pass to present at the gate. Bless his kind heart.
On my way to the office some mornings, at Oshodi, I’d see some fine Ankara designs. I would walk into the shop and pick two for my mom. You see, I was borrowing her cash too once in a while but not like dad.
You see, all those ones that some people’s parents would die and they’d start crying about how they didn’t do anything for their parents while alive bla bla. That’s not my story because I don’t have such regrets. I started doing when I was a teenager till the final week he gave up the ghost. I didn’t have to wait till I have millions.
Lastborn had this type of regret when his mother died. Awon Rolex geng😁. He said he didn’t do anything and that when his money come, who’s he going to spend it on? Spend it on me, baby boo.
The way dad used to call me ehn, as if I was his mother true true because how can you call a 20year old on a 7k salary and say ‘send me money, I’m broke’ or we’d be driving to ibadan on Friday and papa would say ‘yetunde, there’s no fuel in this car. Give me 5k there”
Papa had so much respect for me. I saw that he treated me like a deity, one who has solution to all money problems. Set awon irunmole😂😂. He saw me as his age mate or an elderly woman in a child’s body. He legit thought I was sent to him by the gods 😂😂 and everything I was doing made him rock sure i was truly his late mother.
In a very light mood, I told Mom one day “has dad forgotten I’m just a child? Where does he think I get money from? He knows I’m a student but he’s always calling me when he’s in trouble. Did I give birth to him? And are you not his wife? Why is he not disturbing you?”
She laughed and laughed.
PART TWO
When he died,
Of course, I was the chief mourner. And everyone left me to it. It was a case of ‘omi ti gbe leyin eja’. While I was running mad, sleeping with neighbors, moving from there to the hospital, by the way, that was the first time the ‘poison’ drug was prescribed to make me sleep and I’ve signed for it three times now. God epp me. I was trekking long distances without feeling it. Later when I started work, they were sending me away from work to resume when I get better. Sometimes a week. Because I never really cried when he died. I tried to cry. But the tears only came when I resumed work.
When it was time to move the body home, last born said no, he wasn’t going. He had bar finals.
So they left me to his dead body🙁🙁
The morning after death, I needed to go to his office but I needed someone with me. I looked round but I didn’t see anyone. I called a friend who wasn’t in Abuja and he called a friend to accompany me. Friend never showed up. These friends were gisting and laughing in the car on my way back from ibadan after they picked me from airport road. I was boiling. I was like ‘dont they know the sky is dark for me right now? Can’t they sense that there are no more rainbows, no sunshine, no rain? Can’t they just pretend for me and laugh when alone? Dude even said he’d lost his way and didn’t know the road to my house again. That was when I lost it. One was begging, one was shouting at me.
They quietly dropped me at home and quietly slipped out of my life. I didn’t even notice. That was the last I saw them until almost two years later 😊😊
They left me at a T-junction at the most vulnerable period of my life. At that time, those were the only people I knew in Abuja then. I didn’t have friends.
So lastborn also chose his bar finals over his father’s dead body. So, I became a man. Fuck patriarchy.
I led an ambulance and an official car back to ibadan. You’d have read what happened on the road on this blog before.
The children of my mother did ‘yokolu yokolu, ko a tan bi’ and ntorr to me. Honestly I’m laughing so hard now😁😀😀. Not that they ever did that physically but their action was an ntorr action.
As the chief mourner, nobody called to check up on me. Till today, they don’t know how I fought to stay alive. Or how I slept in hospital and was really scared the day I was discharged to go home. I didn’t want to go. I felt safe in the ward with plenty people.
Was it not on the very day I was discharged that I got home and the roof of my apartment was gone from the inside? It was like a film. I don’t know the kind of spirit that came to visit while I was out😂😂😂
Was it not that period that dad was seizing my hand in the dream and telling me to follow him? 😂😂😂not today, Bros.
But in the midst of the aloneness, something great happened. So unprecedented.
This is where I will conclude the story of last borns and entitlement.
The very next day after dad’s death, the heavens opened. The president of the court called and asked to see us.
He looked at me and asked
‘is there anything your father ought to do for you that he didn’t do?’
I started rolling on the floor of his rugged office. He said ‘no, get up’
I said
‘Sir, my rent is due and I’m jobless’
Dad was going to give me my rent few weeks before he died. He was trying to get me into court of appeal, few weeks before he died. See, my life was completely over. He left me without nothing.
The man said
‘what are your qualifications?’
I told him.
We were in that meeting with the former chief registrar who is now a judge and Mr N, dad’s former assistant.
So, Milord the President turned to CR and said
‘Give her automatic employment.’
He turned to me and said
‘FG won’t pay you until three months if you are newly engaged so, give her 100k to take care of herself pending when she starts to receive salary’
“Pay her money to settle her rent”
“Release money to her for her father’s burial”
“How much casket did you buy?”
“Change it and get a more befitting one. He didn’t die as a pauper. Get a more expensive casket for him”
“Who is in law school? He used to talk about having a child in law school”
“I am the one sir”, last born responded
“How much was he giving you as pocket money?”
“40k sir. Because we don’t cook in school”
“How many months do you have left?”
‘a month or two sir”
“How much is your rent?”. This is the rent of where he lived with his father.
“80k sir”
President turned to CR again
“Give him 50k multiplied by 5 and pay him 80k to settle his rent”
He prostrated. Then to my chagrin, he decided to make a demand to the honourable president.
I was disgusted. Both the CR and Mr N were too. It was like overstepping your bounds.
President said
“I don’t run a charity organization. I’m only doing this because of who your father was to me.”
I thanked the man profusely and prayed for him.
By the time we walked into that office, we were siblings but when we walked out, we were like two strangers. Lastborn was angry with me because, once again, I got the best of everything. My future was secured.
The funny thing is dad was looking forward to putting him in this office after his law school. He said it constantly. He kept that spot for him. Reason why he wanted me at the court of appeal.
But president told him
‘no, I won’t take you here. Go and practise. That’s the same thing I told my son. He said his father’s friend got him a job in oil and gas. I told him to go and practise law.”
Which is true because his son is in Afe Babalola’s Chambers till today and he has appeared in my court many times.
But, God has the biggest sense of humour, I got his place without asking for it, without reading law, without begging for it.
We both joined Mr N’s car on our way home, he dropped along the way and didn’t say a word to me. Mr N was so angry.
To cut this whole labare short,
That was when I saw my first one million.
How did it happen?
This CR who was present at the meeting immediately left that seat and became a judge so a new one who didn’t know about this meeting came on board within a space of two weeks.
I started going to see him. On one of the days, I reminded him money was yet to be paid so he called account
“What about the one million I asked you to pay CSO’s kid?’
When I heard the sum, I opened my eyes in bewilderment because we had calculated it together and it wasn’t a million. Twas about 700k ish or a little above.
When he dropped the call, I said ‘but sir, this money isn’t one million.’
He said yes, I know the correct sum. I only rounded it off because of you.
On the day I went for documentation in July, I was broke. That was before this other money came. It took three months before that money came though. I needed just 5k to settle something but I had less than 500 with me. No food at home.
As I entered dad’s former office which now belonged to Mr N, he said ‘thank God you are here. A contractor from Enugu just called asking to speak with you. Let me even call him back”
I didn’t know this contractor. But we spoke and he said
“Are you his first daughter, have you finished school? Your father was a very good man to me. Send me your account details let me support you. And save my number, if you need anything, let me know.
I was expecting at least 5-10k. The alert didn’t come until night. I saw 100k. I didn’t even know what to do-whether to cry or laugh.
So in the midst of the chaos, while I was left alone, God made sure that even though my heart was heaving due to grief, my akant was also breathing exponentially.
I bore the grief alone and bore the increase alone.
So while at the burial, when they were looking at me with pity, I was the one who was really pitying them.
I went to the account department at the office and told them to block payment to his accounts. His unpaid DTAs and allowances. I told them I was his next of Kin. Thank God he gave me that info himself before he died. Those people weren’t shocked but I’m sure they must have checked his file to corroborate my claim.
They did as I said so even though lastborn had all the atm cards, it was empty(all of us know our parent’s atm password). We knew who was in charge.
I began to send them money, those children of my mother. 50k here, 100k there. The stone which the builders rejected😁😀became their cornerstone and it became marvellous in their eyes.
However, life finally teaches these kind of children what our parents don’t teach. Life humbles them. They begin to imbibe all the character they lost.
He’s grown up these days and he is now a chummy boy. All of them have grown up.
So, when people look at me and say “this one is only a child” I really pity them.
If only they know, that I am a republic. That I can do good all by myself. That patriarchy got nothing on me. That when I’m making silent moves, blocking holes and pipes, sticking a middle finger at the world, I still do it with a plain unassuming face. 😁😀😂
It reminds me of balak who called Balaam to curse the people of God just because he was afraid of them, out of envy. He said they were too much on the face of the Earth and they might invade his land.
Bhet, how can you curse whom God has blessed? Aditu ni mehn.
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About Raising Entitled Kids…
When I saw the trending video of the ekiti man that denied his son from following him home because of coro, I compared and somewhat interchanged him with the other trending Zambian father who spent 21k$ on his son and the boy […]
When I saw the trending video of the ekiti man that denied his son from following him home because of coro, I compared and somewhat interchanged him with the other trending Zambian father who spent 21k$ on his son and the boy chose not to show up for his exams.
Here, we see two examples of parenting and tough love in display.
The ekiti father whose action seemed harsh but firm has become a state champion while the other father got summoned by Zambian police for child molestation.
You see, if it was the ekiti man that gave birth to that boy in the video who didn’t show any sign of remorse and still sat as his father was beating him, that boy would have turned out better. Because I’m sure the ekiti man would give him quality education but would never send him to a 21k$ school and he’d have grown up to respect his parents.
Bringing that situation home, I compared that man to my own parents too. Now, parents as they grow older are known to relax their tough stance on their younger kids for no good reason. While they raise their older kids very firm and unbending in their principles, when you see their last kids, you wonder if those ones actually came out of the loins of same parents. But in this ekiti man’s case, apparently old age didn’t make him lose his firmness in raising properly behaved kids.
After I left the university, I began to see things in my parent’s last two kids that made me wonder if they lost touch with their parenting skills.
While we, the older ones were raised with canes, punishment and firmness, our younger ones were raised without canes or firmness. They got all the good things of life on a platter of gold.
My mother once locked her soup in the kitchen when I was disobedient to her. After my SSCE while waiting for admission, she employed me as a sales girl without pay. She only paid me with hi-malt/maltina and hot bread sometimes. I went to agbeni, dugbe alawo, orita merin to buy goods to stock up her shop. She took me round and showed me to her customers and every little mistake I made in buying blue instead of red got me a lot of tongue lashing. I was naturally lazy growing up, but not on my mother’s watch. She was able to chase some of the laziness away.
We were not spared from her cane either. Dad never caned but you’d pray that he should never invite you for ‘the talk’ where you will smell yourself.
Growing up, they didn’t even have money. He was just a struggling public servant, both of them. I got sent out of school few times for school fees. There were good times and bad times while I was growing up.
Even in my part three, didn’t I stay in Canaan hostel for a semester on the goodwill of my friend, Tobi Tella when there was no money at home? It was so bad that exam was approaching and I had not paid my school fees….40k then. Was it not my friend Ashollie that spoke to another friend who borrowed me money to pay after sitting for the first paper and we were sent out? Was it not in Dr T’s room I used to go and eat yam and egg? Was it not me and Bukky that lived together that year? I can write a whole book about that semester. The times we went to bed hungry. The time she wanted to surprise me by cooking beans because we were both hungry and I had slept like that. She slept off too and it was the smoke that woke us close to midnight.
All these things made me grow up. I saw life from both ends. So when life also tilted to the good direction again, it started when I was in part four on IT and by part five, my wardrobe was a supermarket and I lived in one of the best hostels around. The best in my entire five years in that school.
But this is not the gist. The gist is about the way they raised their last kids. They raised these ones as if they forgot their parenting skills or lost it as they aged.
My mother’s son, the dark one once shared on our siblings WhatsApp group how he forgot to go and write his entrance exam at Uniosun. Why? Bee la n bini.
Dude woke up, got dressed after his parents left for a function and started watching film. Yes, he went to put on the gen and watched film till late afternoon before he remembered.
Even though I laughed at the story when he told it but it wasn’t funny then. He lost admission that year because of ‘feem’. He later went to Osu and his least qualification now is Msc from same school.
Dude started driving by always collecting the car from mechanic on their way to repair. He was in Ss2-3. He bashed the car severally and left it for his parents to repair. He drove off to see his friends.
The first time I drove was when I finished university. And when I bashed the car, I ran away from home. That was the sane thing to do if you were raised in the 80s by yoruba parents. My brother bashed cars severally, even got arrested for wrong driving and he always got away with it.
But this one eventually grew up.
The worst ones are the last borns. Say what? These ones don’t experience any hardship because by the time they are born, life has already changed for good in the family. Last born got driven to his high school in a Mercedes Benz when it was the best car of the season. Dude lived in a 150-200k apartment at ile Ife while I lived in a 30k bedspace hostel, the highest I ever paid till I graduated.
I got home one day and saw dude wearing this huge wristwatch. Dude is fair. So let’s call him the fair one. I moved close and told him I liked his watch. He looked at it casually and muttered his thanks
‘how much did you get it?’
’30k’, he replied
I almost fainted. Because I was on IT in Lagos that year and my salary was 7k while commuting from Ketu Alapere to Oshodi-Isolo everyday.
One time, the fair one got angry and went to lock himself in the guest toilet at home for hours. His parents got worried and came to call me to beg him to come out. Youdonmeanit!!!!
I just strolled back to my bedroom. His mother was even crying. Very funny. Someone that when hunger wire him, he will come out. They were now fussing over him.
By the time he came to live with me in Abuja, I saw weeen. Dude would lock me out of my own house to go and watch ball. I’d return from church to find my door locked. We had only one key. He will pick after plenty rings. Thirty minutes later, he will stroll in casually to open my door then head back to finish watching the ball.
When he was about leaving for law school, dad paid his school fees into my account and told him. Dude started collecting it little by little, 5k here, 10k there.
I came home one day to discover he had carried my box and a new bedsheet. When I confronted him, he said he needed it and he had no time to go and buy. But shouldn’t you ask me first? I was livid. Dude didn’t show any emotion. I called his father and raked. He begged me to come get another box from his office the next day. When I saw this beautiful modern version of the box which he got from sahad stores, all my anger vanished. When dude saw it sitting pretty on my wardrobe, he began to keep malice with me.
This fair one’s entitlement mentality was so mind numbing.
This post is getting so long so I will continue this labare in the next post.
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Just Musing On A Sunday Evening
That time I was recuperating, I came online one day and saw that my friend Dr T, had written some long stuff on Facebook. Dr T is my friend who is now a lecturer. After laughing my head off, I felt like […]
That time I was recuperating, I came online one day and saw that my friend Dr T, had written some long stuff on Facebook. Dr T is my friend who is now a lecturer. After laughing my head off, I felt like ‘oh wow, so this young woman has some talents she hasn’t explored’. Even though she had told me some of those stories before, it felt good reading them again. I was super impressed.
I’m particularly happy that she found her voice and that she’s not afraid to have an opinion and make it public. I’m happy she chose to tell her story. Many women are still living in fear, thinking it’s best to keep their opinions to themselves.
Pray, how can I leave all the stories finding expression inside me untold? Truth is, I haven’t even written half of the stories in my belly. Partly because, I can only write about my experiences in court sparingly for now. And then the other stories are not yet ripe to be told but I’m working on them.
Lately I started compiling my memoir but the illness slowed me down. Someday, someone somewhere is going to read our stories and make a better decision in life, avoid career mistakes that we made, even our children will be happy to see our footprints on the sands of time.
I am a storyteller and I plan to live the rest of my days writing and telling stories. Just writing books. This period has afforded me the opportunity to read so many books. I read to stupor. I read far into the night but I’ve stopped now.
When the bopdaddy challenge was trending, my friend in UK messaged me that we should participate. But I told her I have never owned a face brush in my life seeing that they were all throwing face brushes upandan. I used a book, my book but tinuke badmus called it a church girl version. Woreva!
Tinuke badmus is also finding her voice on Instagram. As talented as she is, she has been mostly quiet about her craft. She makes badass female wears quietly but these days, I’ve been largely impressed with her ‘becoming’ on Instagram. With a husband like hers who is a public speaker, I was wondering if she wanted to end up as a closet enthusiast. Her husband is even a Soyinka. I’m in my house tinuke, come and beat me if you can go pass the curfew in kaduna.
Dear woman, write your own stories. If you feel like talking, talk. If you feel like having a platform, please do. Stop living for other people. This fear of ‘what will people say’ will keep you caged forever.
And if you need me to help you write, I’m just a few thousands away. I don’t come cheap but I deliver quality😉😆
So, Milord has been sitting in court. I remember when he was saying to me in March ‘yetunde, don’t fix a lot of cases for me in May because Ramadan would have started by then. I want mostly five or six cases in a day.
I said ‘Yes Milord’
But here we are, he’s been delivering only judgements like two in a day. We are all home. Man proposes.
I’ve looked at the dresses in my wardrobe many times and shook my head. I’ve looked at my shoes sitting pretty on the rack. I’ve been wearing slippers for the past two months. And I’ve been wearing just a brown sleeveless gown everyday. Life is funny.
Will life ever go back to normal? What will court sitting now look like? I was not informed about 2020, if not I would have prepared. That’s to show that God rules in the affairs of men and man has no control over what happens in the world. Everything has failed us. But God hasn’t.
***
I have spent this entire time not reading alone but doing so many cookery stuff. I have made chinchin.
I baked cake.
I made egusi with scent leaf and pepper soup spice adding eja gbigbe. The egusi tasted like I was eating pepper soup. You should try it.
I made kunu Aya. Imagine, I stayed away from this drink so long because people kept saying it’s a drink that drives people to the oza room.
I’m here to tell you it’s a blatant lie. That drink only makes you sleep bonoku. I enjoyed and will be making it more going forward.
I make zobo constantly. My zobo tastes romantic. I spice it with ginger too.
Today, I baked bread, hallelujah someborri!!!!
Before the week runs out, I may go back to making scotch egg and also fry akara.
The day I finally make yoghurt, every where will burst😀
I walked into my favorite supermarket to get Tito yoghurt last week and the price had jumped to a thousand. I respected myself and calmly dropped it. It was 650 o and until I check it at Hmedix Garki and it’s truly 1k, I ain’t buying. Lemme just learn how to make it first.
My favorite of all time was farm fresh yoghurt but I haven’t seen it even at ShopRite in ages. I think they changed the package and this new package just isn’t it for me. The old farm fresh comes in a big bottle with strawberry and vanilla variants. It was about 1200-1500 and I was buying it happily. This Tito yoghurt comes close to it but the bottle is too small to be sold for a thousand.
If I tell you I’m broke and you see me anywhere later buying yoghurt or chocolate ice cream, please believe that it is my last cash I’m using to buy it. I’ve done this many times. I spend my money to the last Kobo even when I have no hope for the next day.
Why do I do this? Because I dont want to give anybody the pleasure of spending my hard earned money when I die. Too much sense will not kill me😀😁😂
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Carefully Scripted Coro Diagnosis…..
Hi, it’s been a while.I have been recuperating.I fell sick one week after treating that malaria I wrote about. It looked like I was dying. I went through excruciating pains and it was all over my body. The pains would usually start […]
Hi, it’s been a while.
I have been recuperating.
I fell sick one week after treating that malaria I wrote about. It looked like I was dying. I went through excruciating pains and it was all over my body. The pains would usually start in the evenings then when I manage to sleep, it comes back by 1am and I’m writhing in pains till daybreak.
I swallowed a lot of drugs. Took Panadol. Finished a malaria dose yet no improvement. I wasn’t sleeping every night for three straight days. My body was hot. You could cook noodles on my body that period. My head was banging, one of the worst headaches I ever had in my life. I could not walk again.
One day in the middle of the night, during another painful episode, after catching a glimpse of my neck in the bathroom mirror on my way from the loo, I received sense to go to the hospital in the morning.
But I did one very important thing. I checked the calendar for the circle. This circle determines whether my time would be wasted at the hospital or not. The circle shows the next menstrual date.
I managed to get to the hospital. Twas as if I was floating on air. I took a bike. Hospital wrote “no face mask, no treatment”.
Chai, I only came with menstrual cycle date, I didn’t know that face mask was a requirement too.
I didn’t even have money. But I have NHIS.
I walked in nonetheless and saw all of them without facemask or lab coat sitting down gloomily. The whole place was dry and devoid of the normal human traffic.
“We can’t attend to you without a facemask”, a guy said
Toh.
I was turning to go back home and die.
Abuja is now on partial lockdown but this happened on a no-access day. The street was dry. No shops opened.
But I told myself, let me just alert at least someone that I tried o. I really tried not to die, you see I came to the hospital and went back home because I didn’t have a face mask.
Well, phone buzzed and money came. I did a u-turn, asked around for where to get mask, followed a strange guy to one house where he said it was sold and got two.
When I eventually saw the doctor, the chairs had been re-arranged. Patients now sat close to the door not directly facing the doctor. Doctor now sat at the far end of the room close to the window.
Hospital had no light. No diesel. One of the most popular bougie hospitals around. If you go to their HMO desk at Wuse, they will first of all ask you
“You are from which company/parastatal? Is it Julius Berger or Total Nig…… Is it THT/NHIS? Do you have an ID card?”
If you need to get tested for eyes, they will ask you to call your HMO and ask if it’s part of your package. Your HMO can choose to pay 60% while you foot the rest of the bill.
They cater to big companies and government parastatals yet they can’t employ doctors. They don’t always have malaria drugs and injections. You can stay waiting for hours before a doctor attends to you. No empathy by their staff, zero professionalism. Now, no diesel.
Of course I’m changing hospital as soon as Coro leaves. No more bougie for me.
The hospital was in total darkness. It was early morning but it was dark inside. I left home 7am or thereabout.
So instead of referring me to the lab for test, he didn’t bother. He didn’t even ask me the period question. The thing pain me ehn. The day that I finally went with the answer to the question I’ve always failed, nobody remembered to ask me.
“So, I wrote that the nurses should give you injections”
“Please, give me drugs”
“Okay, repeat the malaria drug you’ve been taking…..
As I heard that, I knew I would not get better. And I needed anything that’d take away the pain and sleeplessness. I didn’t mind what it was. The only problem was, I never take injections. I hate needles.
But like a lamb before the slaughter, I offered myself to be given injection. Something I haven’t taken in years. Drugs have always killed my malaria. But this malaria was probably sent to me. Won Fe get mi ni😁😀😊but they didn’t get me.
All of a sudden, he became quiet and asked with a very solemn voice
“Do you feel the taste of food you eat?”
I shook my head
“What?”, He said
The way he looked at me alarmingly made me realize it was a carefully scripted Coro diagnosis. My brain returned immediately.
“Yes I can feel it”, I said
“Are you coughing?”
Then I grinned. Las Las, you no fall hand. Person wey fear Coro wey no even protect himself. How can you tell patients to wear masks and you are just sitting there without a mask yourself?
“Doctor abeg, give me my file make I go collect my injection”
He passed the file to me gingerly, making sure his hand didn’t brush mine😁😂
I went to the pharmacy to see a grim face woman
“We don’t have this injection. You will have to go and buy. But come and sign here”
The signing was for the poison she was going to give me. They wrote ‘poison’ on that book. It’s a drug for insomnia that you can’t buy over the counter.
I trekked outside to buy injection. That trip shouldn’t take more than 10mins but it took me 30mins. I could barely walk.
I got back and the nurses station was empty.
“Wait for them, they will soon come”.
They had all gone on ward round. When a nurse eventually came, got my file and collected the arthemeter injection, she casually asked if I’d eaten.
That was when I remembered that I had not. She said “ahn, you want to finish me. Go and look for something to eat”
Iru wahala wo leleyi ntori oloun? Where will I get anything to eat in this dry desert? O su mi.
I eventually got the injection after eating two pieces of pure Bliss. Injection was painful and peppery. I went back home and slept for the first time.
My friend, prisca’s diary messaged me coincidentally and she recommended scent leaf and bitter leaf.
I’m now a responsible human being sha. I have never taken these stuffs in my life but because of what I went through, I was willing to try anything.
When I blended that shit and drank, it was bitter. So I added malt to it. I drank it for three days, took injection for three days and I started sleeping well at night. The bitter leaf concoction worked every night even after my drugs finished.
I rose up from my bed just few days back and I appreciate good health more. It wasn’t easy mehn. I was so helpless.
I have a garden at the back of my compound where there’s scent leaf, bitter leaf, moringa, banana. Only mango tree is not there.
So I will be taking medicinal concoctions now. Let me be my own babalawo. I even went to dig out my Botany 504 notebook, one of the best courses I had in 500L taught by Professor Egunjobi, a visiting lecturer from UI. We used to call the course ‘tewetegbo’.
That book contains the solution to many of the world’s biggest ailment apart from Coro using medicinal plants. It even contains how to do ‘aworo’ so that you can sell your market faster. Even how to do ‘Ogun isoye’, brain booster. I want to sell the book for 250k. Pls message me and I will send to you.😁😂😀
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