My father taught me several lessons: his life; the mission of Chief Obafemi Awolowo; the importance of education; the Yoruba/Omoluabi ethos and ethics; my roots in Egba; models of good conduct and character; the power of honesty, integrity, humility, decency, and simplicity; leadership in Yoruba culture; a good name being better than financial riches; and so on, invaluable lessons that have been my compass through my life’s journey wrapped around Sports.
My Father And The Shocking New Lesson
A few days ago, I encountered one lesson my father NEVER taught me. The experience left me flustered and deeply disappointed. A friend summed it up aptly but painfully – ‘we are in a gangsters’ paradise’.
Permit me to start from the beginning.
My Father And My Childhood Passion For Football
I was about 10 years old.
I was crazy about the game of football.
I played it everyday. I was also punished daily for neglecting my chores at home, and for dirtying my clothes on the sandy football field near the Magistrate court at the top of Yandoka St. in Jos.
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The pleasure I derived from playing football was bigger than the pain I suffered from the daily caning and punishment from my parents. I was not alone in that dilemma. All of us (children) that took part in the daily 5-a-side matches used to compare notes on the varied punishments that we received from our angry parents frustrated with our incalcitrance.
The Jerseys That Changed Everything
Then came this fateful day.
For the first time in our lives, my side played in jerseys courtesy of one of us, Lawrence, a very rascally 10-year old boy that lived a few houses down the road from 64/5 Yandoka St. where my family lived. None of us knew where Lawrence got the jerseys from. We just wore to play in excitement. The colourful Yellow and Red jerseys attracted more spectators at the game than usual that evening.
Dusk was settling in when we ended our football match.
As captain and best player of my team, it was agreed that I should be the one to take custody of the jerseys, keep them at home and return them the following day’s match.
That’s how I went home happily, carrying with me my ‘cargo’ of jerseys, that old school rhyme playing on my head:
“Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream”.
My Father’s Interrogation At Home
That night, my father came back early from his after-work socials. He saw the new football jerseys on a seat in a corner of his parlour.
The room was serves by a single oil lamp, its orange flame dancing and throwing some light in the semi-darkness. He asked in a voice that reverberated around the room where the new jerseys came from.
It took me unawares. I had not thought that any questions would be asked. I responded that I was the one that brought them home.
‘Where did you get them?’, he asked me in Yoruba.
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I explained to him how Lawrence had brought them to the football field and how, after our match, they were handed over to me for safe-keep at home, and mandated to return them the following day to the field.
‘Where did Lawrence get the jerseys from?’, my father continued with his inquest.
I could smell trouble brewing.
I started to stutter. I had no idea, of course. None of us at the field had asked him. I knew immediately, that the questioning was heading the wrong way.
‘I don’t know where Lawrence got it, Sir’, I replied.
‘And you brought them into my house?’.
The mood in the room changed immediately.
At this point, I knew I was ‘dead’.
I watched my father’s eyes turn from white to blazing-red. He quickly wore back his shirt, asked me to pick up the jerseys and follow him.
My Father Takes Me To The Police Station
I knew my end had come that night. My siblings started to cry and to plead for me.
Into the darkness of that night, I walked behind my father, the jerseys now weighing a ton in my hand. Up Yandoka St we marched, past the magistrate court, turned the corner towards the fire brigade station on Massallqchi Jumma St, close to my Uncle’s home where I thought my father was taking me for the severest punishment.
Suddenly, I felt a tug of my shirt at my nape. It almost yanked me off my feet. My father’s grip was tight as he dragged me into the Police Station.
Ha!! Police what???
That’s not a place for children. It was the most dreaded place on earth, meant only for criminals and thieves. That was my picture of the police station.
Under my father’s firm grip, I was deposited in front of a long wooden desk, staring up into the eyes of a ‘wicked-looking’ police officer sitting behind the biggest counter in the world.
My head was racing with jagged thoughts.
I was shaking like a leaf in the wind.
‘Officer, I don’t know where my son got these Jerseys from. I didn’t buy them for him. He brought them into my house. Please find out’.
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My father pushed me to the back of the counter, released me with the exhibits from hell in my hand, turned back, and walked out of the Police Station.
The Night Of Fear And Revelation
It was the most scary moment of my life. I ‘died’ several times on my feet that night as more officers came and started to question me about jerseys I knew nothing about.
All I could remember afterwards was that soon after I finished telling my story, the station had started to fill up with familiar ‘faces’ – all the boys that played on my side that evening, led by Lawrence, that wore the new jerseys. All the children were accompanied by their fathers, mothers, siblings, neighbours. They were all under ‘arrest’.
Jos was a small town and everyone knew everyone. Even the trader that sold the jerseys to Lawrence ( as we learnt later) was brought to the station.
That night, the Police Station was filled with wailing children frightened out of their wits by the possibility of ending up in jail.
My Father’s Lasting Lesson From The Incident
By the end of the night, Lawrence confessed. He stole money from his father’s till to buy the jerseys. Thereafter, the other children were released to their parents. A police man took me home and explained the situation to my father. Everyone seemed to be relieved that fateful night, and the world returned to some normalcy.
Well, so I thought.
At midnight, my whole family were roused up from sleep and assembled for what was to become my father’s sermon to his children, lessons that would shape and guide our lives arising from the episode of the new football jerseys that I took home without knowing or asking Lawrence their source.
It became page-one in the lessons my father taught me.
A New Lesson Yet To Be Revealed
Next week, I shall reveal the other lessons, as well as a new lesson that I found out this past week, that my father NEVER taught me!
