My father taught me many things: discipline, contentment, and humility. He taught me these lessons the way he knew how. He never spared the rod with us, and I got a great dose of beating to reset my juvenile brain…. Today, I remember my dear father, who has since transited, the way I remember him and the survival lessons he taught me…
SINCE we sha manage to get one day in the year to celebrate fathers, please, let’s enjoy it to the fullest.
I want to share one little story about my father.
I am his second child but his first son. This position is weighty because it comes with a lot of responsibilities.
First son! Ha, na load o.
So, here is the story that taught me something I have carried with me till today.
Daddy dotted on me in my childhood years. I mean, the few years we spent together before those teenage years of sowing one’s wild oats. He was an ex-serviceman who fought in the avoidable and unfortunate Nigerian Civil War that lasted 30 months. Somehow, he survived the war, but not without visible scars. He carried a gunshot wound. My father left the army in 1975 as a Captain.
He had always told me he wanted me to become a medical doctor. He even promised to gift me a car as my graduation gift after I obtained a degree in medicine. The other option was engineering. Oh, how he nursed the dream that his first son would either become a doctor or an engineer. I also shared the dream with him and made up my mind to make Daddy’s dream a reality. But there was a snag. Numbers and I were not friends at all. In Nigeria, mathematics is a core foundational subject for science students. Mtcheeeew. As if doctors need calculators and logarithms to treat their patients.
Anyway sha, mathematics had been my nightmare from junior secondary school and it stayed that way all through. The first secondary school I attended was Abdul Aziz Atta Memorial College, Okene (A3MCO) in today’s Kogi State. It was still part of Kwara State back then.
I spent my first four years there and, within that short time, became a member and then president of our literary clubs — Drama Club, Debating Society, and Press Club. I was representing the school in competitions and winning laurels, a rare feat for science students back then. Of course, this made me popular in school, but I dared not share the news of my creative conquests with my father at home because I was sent there to study the sciences, simple. But I was flunking all my science subjects like anything. In junior secondary school, Introductory Technology, Mathematics, and Integrated Science were my worst subjects, especially mathematics. When I moved to senior secondary classes, it got worse with Physics, Mathematics, and Chemistry.
The school advised that I move to the arts class after seeing my junior secondary results and my literary activities, but I dared not raise it before my father. So I hid it from him, proceeded to the sciences in senior secondary school, and kept failing those core subjects — maths, physics, and chemistry.
Well, Daddy took me to another school, Esie/Iludun Grammar School, Esie (EIGS) in Kwara State, to continue my studies.
After seeing my woeful performance in the sciences again — despite repeating classes in EIGS — my father decided to prove something to me that has stayed with me till today.
Daddy always said I was brilliant enough for the sciences and would be wasting that brilliance in the arts. Serious people study science. Simple.
At EIGS I had to repeat SS1, as I said, and I failed those science subjects again. But as usual, I became the starboy of the school in all literary activities. I was leading Press Club, Drama Club, and Debating Society. Our Social Gathering Nites, which held one Saturday every month, used to be my favourite day. The day was earmarked for drama, music, poetry, dance, etc. It was one of the sure days I shined like a star and, of course, won the admiration of my most favourite species — the girls — with our group presentations. Lol.
My first term results were woeful. I only passed subjects without calculations. So when it was time to resume the new term, my father took me to a place in Mushin, Lagos. He said maybe I needed some spiritual assistance to make me pass my exams because I was too brilliant to be failing ‘ordinary’ mathematics and physics. That day, Daddy took me to a prophet we called Baba Aladura or Woli. But when we got there, he left me in the car and went inside alone to speak with the spiritualist. He came out later with a 5-litre keg of liquid and handed it to me.
Daddy said the concoction was Ògùn Ìsòyè — medicine for retentive memory — and it would help me pass my exams, but I had to read extensively to make it work. According to him, there’s no medicine for knowledge except studying well, but this ‘medicine’ would help me remember all I read. After all, I had always told him I read well and managed to pass subjects that required mainly writing well and clearly. I sabi explain, but I nor sabi calculate. I couldn’t and didn’t tell him how uninterested I was in the sciences, so I didn’t bother studying them too much.
But armed with this ‘memory medicine’, I decided to put in some effort. When we resumed, I started staring more at my physics, chemistry, and mathematics books, trying to cram formulas and commit definitions to memory. After that, I would take my potion at night before ‘lights out’. A few weeks to mid-term, I realised the Memory Medicine was more than halfway gone! Ha, what would I do when exams started towards the end of the term? I panicked. I decided to reserve the remaining one for exam period.
By this time, I had already formed the boring habit of staring at my science notes during our compulsory afternoon and evening preps. By the way, I attended boarding school all through secondary school and spent seven solid years instead of six, just because of science while at it.
So, when exams started that term, I resumed my ‘medicine’ and wrote my exams with greater interest and intention than I had ever mustered. To cut my long story short: exams ended, results came out, and lo and behold — I came 3rd in a science class! It was sheer miracle. I was overwhelmed. I couldn’t wait to get back to Lagos and show my soldier father — remember, ex-serviceman, hence strict discipline at home — my ‘report card’.
Daddy came back from work that evening, our first day of holiday at home, and I could barely contain myself. As was the custom, he settled down and asked for our results, which we tendered in turns. When it was my turn, I proudly presented mine to him and watched keenly, waiting for that final nod and smile of approval. None came. He simply looked up from the report sheet and said, by inference, “I told you you could do it if you worked at it.” And as if he read my mind — that I was about to tell him the potency of the magical ‘memory medicine’ — he cut me short by informing me that what he gave me and called medicine was simply water.
That day, Daddy gave me a gift.
MY father taught me many things: discipline, contentment, and humility. He taught me these lessons the way he knew how. He never spared the rod with us, and I got a great dose of beating to reset my juvenile brain.
Today, I remember my dear father, who has since transited, the way I remember him and the survival lessons he taught me.
Happy Father’s Day.
Baba Soldier! Baba Layolayo!
Rest well, Daddy.
Happy Father’s Day to the responsible fathers out there.
Ire o.
- Segun Oriade Adefila, theatre practitioner, is founder Crown Troupe of Africa, and President Guild of Nigerian Dancers, GOND
