Father Father

As I grow older, my appreciation for my father grows. When I look back at my interactions with him, I now understand the impact of my own actions and not just my words on my children. They are actually picking their values from my actions. It must be so, because through my father's actions, I learned many values. I have written below a few of the things I learnt from him.

Independent Thought & Vision-casting.
My father gave us wings to fly from early on by letting us make life choices independently. Sometimes extended family members railed at the level of independence we had to make decisions. He would engage us in dialogue, through which we had to convince him we had thought through our planned course of action. I remember him asking me for my strategic plans for the next five to ten years of my life when I was about seventeen. At that age, five years seemed like an eternity. We filled our secondary school forms and JAMB forms on our own. Whenever he came to visit me in university, people commented that our camaraderie was like that of peers. He had no airs about him. He respected our thoughts and took our views seriously. Talk about building confidence early in life.

Entrepreneurship
When I was about 17. My father brought me my first architecture client. He left us to discuss terms and I took the brief. Later on, he asked me if I had discussed the terms of payment. Indeed he has been my client. He taught us to work hard and keep business as business. Indeed, in my nuclear family, when we borrow money from one another, we pay back.

No Sense of Entitlement
He raised us without a sense of entitlement, and a strong work ethic. I remember on my first vacation as a first year student in university at 16. I laid siege outside his door. When he came out I pleaded my case: I was broke; I needed money; How was a young lady to survive on holiday without money? He listened quietly. After I was done, he asked me to follow him. We drove to his furniture company, Ricco Furniture on Ikorodu Road. He  introduced me to the manager. That day, I started my first job as a sales executive. I understood, that if I wanted money, then I needed to work for it. It was empowering, because I could choose to dress as well as I wanted to, or save up for trips just by working hard. I was not dependent on him or anybody, I could chart my own course in life from an early age.

Courage
At some point, when I was in my teenage years, an incident occurred in my hometown. My father is a titled man, in my town. I come from Igbo-Ukwu in Anambra State. Igbo-Ukwu instituted something called the merit chiefs in the eighties, as a response to the apparent bastardization of chieftaincy titles by the Igbo monarchs in the late eighties and nineties. At that time, men of means could buy a chieftaincy title, regardless of the means of their wealth acquisition. Over the Christmas break that year, the youth called an emergency assembly, and publicly accused one of the merit chiefs of land-grabbing and then committing murder to ensure he retained ownership of the land in dispute. They put together a kangaroo court, found him guilty and immediately sentenced him to be banished from the town.  Everyone was afraid, there were mutterings that if he was found guilty, he must have been guilty. My father however, fought assiduously to prove that the judgement was illegitimate; that there were established channels to obtain justice, not the youth taking over the reigns of the town. His point was not that the man was innocent, but he needed to be proven guilty(or not) in a legitimate court. I witnessed a conversation between my dad and his mother, where she appealed to him to not get involved in the matter, so that he would not be associated with someone who may have committed murder, and by extension, be branded a murderer. My father argued that if he kept quiet and looked the other way, it may be him tomorrow, and there would be no one left to speak for him, if he found himself in a position of oppression and injustice.  It was during this conversation that I became aware of the speech by Martin Niemöller :


"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

They were able to get the banishment lifted and due process followed.  In the end, the man was legally acquitted.

Take Calculated Risks
My father took calculated risks. He took chances. I remember once we set off from Lagos to the Eastern part of Nigeria on environmental sanitation Saturday at 6:30 am. We rushed through, leaving Lagos before 7:00 a.m. (environmental sanitation was a mandatory practice in national Nigeria from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. every last Saturday every month, when everyone was required to stay at home and clean his/her exterior environment. As a result, vehicles were meant to be off the road during this period). My father's calculation was that the authorities would be too busy monitoring the movement in the cities and would not be on the federal roads preying on travelers as was their custom. We arrived at Awka at about 10:45am. When we got to Awka, we were stopped by some soldiers who, assumed he was from the Defence Headquarters, because we were riding in an army green coloured Mercedes Benz. He did nothing to disabuse them of that notion. They bade us journey mercies and sent us on our way with a customary military salute. He made it in time for his all important meeting. I remember the adrenaline rush as we drove through the deserted roads daring to brave it when everyone else was indoors because of the sanitation. While this action may be deemed as defiant in some quarters, I learnt that sometimes you need to take risks, but calculated ones.

Be Open-minded
When I was twelve years old, after a two year search for intense meaning, I made a radical decision to commit the rest of my life to the tenets of Christianity (popularly known as getting born-again). This involved a drastic lifestyle change, and a fervour of spirit I had not had before. Armed with this new sense of purpose, I began to tell all who would listen about this new joy and sense of purpose I had found. At this time I was in a boarding secondary school in the Eastern part of Nigeria.  My guardian sent a letter to my parents claiming I had gone crazy and was now a religious fanatic. He sent this letter after he had a meeting with me, in which he appealed to me to suspend talking to people about Christ until I finished my education. This I found impossible to do, as I felt a sense of urgency, to spread the good news and by doing so possibly bring salvation to people I had come to love. I also explained to him that I did not see how they were mutually exclusive. My father, on receiving this letter, travelled from Lagos to Onitsha, where I was in a secondary boarding school. When he arrived, he interviewed my friends and I. We defended our faith vigorously for about two hours and at the end of the intense dialogue, he gave me a note for my guardian. The note said:  "I have seen my daughter and I find her no cause for alarm." He let me live as a radical Christian. Twelve years later, he committed his life to following Jesus Christ at the culmination of his own personal search for meaning.

Today, I salute you Dad. Along with all the wonderful devoted fathers out there. You may not be perfect, but your stability and presence continues to provide a necessary foundation. Your children will later realize your worth. Hang in there, even if you feel unappreciated now. Kind words of praise from you are like life-blood to your children. Do not withhold them. You are indeed a rare breed.  The world would not be the same without you. Happy Father's Day!

Who is Nigeria?

It seems really tough not to be intimidated by the difference in our quest for excellence. As I walked through the Washington Dulles Airport designed by Eero Saarinen, built in the 60s, I felt almost depressed, because the skylights were clean, the tension steel cables looked brand new, and strong, the floors gleemed, and all the escalators worked. Then I thought with sadness about my vehicle, which always has water marks, even though my driver and security guard say they have cleaned it. The water collecting in puddles in my yard every time it rains, not swept away by someone's fastidiousness. Left to grow algae. The puddles collecting in the first place because the driveway is unevenly paved. The paint smears on my tile skirting that haunt me each day I walk in my door. I must get someone to clean it up. It can seem discouraging, this settling for less. Can it be that we as a people cannot see these details, can it be that we are wired differently? Or is it conditioning? If it is conditioning? Then who conditioned the people in the West? Whose job is it to condition 170 million people?

My thoughts return to the airport. The Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos fills me with great sadness each time I arrive home. I know I should be grateful that the escalators are working today. But for how long? The newly laid granite tiles that are unsealed, already staining, the hideous cream and blue seats, line the dank boarding gate areas, with green aluminium ceiling slats. Can we not see that the colours don’t work? Can we not see that the tiles are uneven and the gate areas are dark? Even if one cannot tell the reason why our airports look shabby, surely one must know that there is a difference.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that the problem is that those effecting the changes do not know better. It must be so, otherwise, why would someone be commissioned to put POP moulding decorative moulding on the modern addition to the airport? However, I am also realizing that this is my airport. I own it as much as anyone else walking through its halls. Why should I cringe every time I come home?  Why shrug and walk away in apathy, resigned to the sad conclusion that this is Nigeria. Who is Nigeria? Is it not you and I? But the airport does not reflect me. It does not reflect many people who walk through it, and resign themselves to the "Nigerian State of things". I am Nigeria. You are Nigeria. If you feel this state of affairs does not reflect you, then you need to do something. Who is writing the Nigerian story? Who are the main characters? Who is the audience? Through an awakened consciousness, we must wrestle for the soul of Nigeria and each become the principal actors or at least play a supporting role, or move props. Whatever it is, but do something to change the story. Only you have that power. When you remain in the audience in resignation, watching as others take your cue, you are letting others write the Nigerian story. You are muzzling yourself and ceding your right to a great place to call home. Do something today. You are Nigeria. Change the Nigerian story.