She was barely 44 years old when she became a widow, losing the love of her life and support system, my father, aged 49 years, in July 1978.

They both had plans, one of which was to commence a building project of an already approved building plan on her personal site 2 streets away, however, with his passage in July of that year, the plan took a back burner. At least till ‘land-grabbers’ showed up in the last quarter of the same year.

Quickly, by December of that year, a massive foundation work commenced on the land to avoid losing it – This project was to take a dozen number of years (12) before it was anything close to habitable, scrapping up earnings from her meagre teaching salary, plus being able to save cos she made sure her school was a walking distance from home, so no transportation costs, and could come home for lunch, etc. 

Her meagre salary and take home, though small, actually taking her home. 

Something happened too along the line while construction was still ongoing. She had given some people from the Northern part of the country the authority to stay in her uncompleted building and take care of it . . . Only for her to go there one evening, the place already turned into a ‘small village’ overwhelmed with their folks and the most unimaginable, a particular man, Babalawo actually, casting divination in the native way . . . With immediate effect and automatic alacrity, my Mum barked out orders for them to clearout from her property . They were begging to be given more time and do so the following morning, but she remained adamant, insisting on riiiiiiiiiiiii now mehhhhnnnn.

Looking back, that building site was turned to our ‘playground’ by Mummy, ensuring that every free time we had was spent, cleaning rubbles, clearing weeds, moving blocks or packing sand from here to there, her strong belief being that ‘an idle hand is the devil’s workshop . . . ‘ She really worked our arses out, mehnnnn. 

It was therefore, freedom at last when we got the first tenant and the process of them moving in . . .

Indeed, it had really seemed like a ‘jackpot’ in 1990 when the first occupant moved into one wing of my Mum’s twin duplex in Gbagada – Lagos for an annual rent of N12,000 only, and the inhabitant, a Unilag Prof never paid another rent till his case was decided after many years in court and bailiffs came to throw him out – they were going to impound his 7 series BMW when the useless man brought out a briefcase from inside the vehicle’s boot and then settled all his outstanding rent.

Even though the struggle was real, the results were finally coming to bear . . .

Looking back, this ungrateful man had actually enjoyed God’s grace by his tenancy being accepted. He had been thrown out of his last abode too, a duplex belonging to a Lagos Oba a few streets away and was according to the story he told my big brother squatting with a friend of his who gave him, a heavily pregnant wife and a slightly grown son their spare guestroom – So when they come back home, himself and his family would remain in his car till bedtime before going inside for a nap – A routine that went on till my big brother met him and sold the idea of his tenancy to my ‘struggling’ old mother.

Mum, a then recently retired, but absolutely not tired primary school teacher, who had decided to take a chill pill after 35 glorious years of service to humanity. To think even her gratuity was not enough to finish up the entire building project, so had pumped all the money into this one wing to make it ‘enquirable’ for letting. 

The Prof’s seemingly huge twelve thousand naira (N12,000) rent disappeared in no time also with the appeal for him to pay a second year in advance to tidy up things, especially as my mother despite running helter-skelter, could not secure any loan from family and friends. 

The funny thing, looking back was how everything fell into place for this most ungrateful tenant – His wife had put to bed a beautiful baby girl barely a few days upon their moving in, and they threw a massively befitting naming ceremony / party in the large compound of their new home, many of their family and friends in attendance, visibly impressed. Everyone merrying and having a good time, the ‘homeless’ man a few days ago, having the bash of his life on that fatefull night.

But years thereafter, when pleading and pressure failed in getting him to pay his outstanding rent, my Mum, after resigning herself to fate had eventually resorted to the law court for justice. At a point in time, she had even sought the intervention of the tenant’s wifey, my Mum:

‘Ever playing the ‘I am a widow’ card . . . ‘ on anyone and everyone she felt was taking undue advantage of her. 

I still remember the Prof’s wife’s response:

‘Ani ki e ni suuru . . . ‘ (Kindly have more patience).

Something, almost unimaginable, momentarily flashing back . . . A stark reality, that this ‘lucky’ b.stard never realised, nor appreciated – Paying back ‘good’ with evil ! 

@ O’Shine Original . . . 

As kids who grew up losing their father early to the cold hands of death, our mother was forced to play not just her motherly but also fatherly roles on us – A hard combo.

Mum was a very sensitive woman, or better put, quite careful person, someone who hated to be labelled what she wasn’t, so avoided speculations like fire, not to talk of allowing people to peddle rumours about her. Plainly put, she hated any form of embarrassment.

If you’re a male neighbour and stop to give her a lift home, sorry for you, cos she’s going to vehemently decline your offer and rather walk home. In a nutshell, no assumptions, that she clearly minded her own business. 

More as witnesses, than ‘training’, she had at least either of my late immediate older sister or myself in tow whenever or to whichever family friend’s or neighbour’s she had to be at. 

I bet, we hated these roles, too, who wanna be grown up when all your mateys are on the streets mingling and playing all sorts associated with kids our age – Not for my Mum, though, as I for one, not only went to pick-up stuffs like bags of ‘elubo’, ‘ogi’, and or ‘garri’ all the way from the Somolu Market, stacked on my head oooo, passing many streets and in front of kids my age who were in joyous moods with one another. 

When there was an issue with a tenant (looking back, we had very many madly unstable tenants) and my Mum was using a family friend lawyer, Otunba Adegbesan, SAN on Ikorodu Road, she dragged me along, same with when she started using lawyer Rotimi Fasgogbon, SAN, my big brother’s old school mate, around Shipeolu Street in Onipanu, Lagos, I was pulled along also, either as a witness or training, I’ll never know the reason behind those moves, or maybe cos of my male factor.

Like it or not, these were chores and errands you must run as kids.

All three of us, late sister, myself and younger brother went sometimes – I remember my only ever visit to Ajegunle to see Mum’s cousin and his kids, or was it the one to Festac to see another of her cousins, Mama Tayo, and yet another cousin at Oyingbo, Mama Tony, or at Onipanu to see ‘Double Runsewe’ and her kids, also to Ilasa, to see her auntie, Mama Ilasa.

I recall visiting Chief Ade Gboteku’s Palm-Groove Estate home alongside my mother too, many years later, as a university undergraduate, following her to Oje Market, Ibadan and I remember sleeping overnight at her big brother’s place on this journey. 

Anyways, I usually frowned, sometimes outrightly and openly rejecting some of those tasks – I guess it must’ve been the reason focus shifted to my immediate older sister on this particular day, we were both teenagers, so why can’t she also run some of these erands, I would protest.

This particular man had recommended a tenant months earlier, and he was by now, owing and defaulting on his rent.

So, Mum had sent my sis (with her bright eyeballs, not exactly tall height, ever smiling, rotund cheeks, and ever well dressed) to this big man a couple of streets away, someone by all standards at the time, very well to do, a notable personality in the society, with a large family, too and lived practically alone by himself, his family; wives and kids, next door – He had personal staffs of his, attending to his daily needs; driver, chef, cleaner, maid, etc.

And my now late teenage sister had come home that fateful day, visibly shaken, very bothered, ruffled, and scared – To say she was very upset is saying it lightly.

She had been sexually harrassed by ‘Chief’, who pulled her cheeks and had tried latching unto her forcefully, after attempting to bribe her with a plate of yam and eggs:

‘I can ask my chef to make it for you . . . ‘ he had boasted.

What ‘Chief’ didn’t know was that, we ate our three square meals and practically lacked nothing at home, besides not having a father. No-one could ‘dangle’ a plate of yam and eggs in our innocent faces and get us hooked, naaaaaa, impossicant.

Anyways, this was a sad event we couldn’t tell our Mum about – A secret till this very day – The moment your kid wished they were your friend ! 

@ O’Shine Original . . . 

The memories of my late Dad are always there, flooding back to me every now and then despite having lost him since the age of 10 years in 1978 – Yeah, that long.

I remember him taking us to school and leaving his office around lunchtime to bring us back home, served us lunch and headed back to the office, when due to health challenges he could no longer, he made arrangements at work for his office pool car to pick and drop us alongside children of his colleagues – By the time this couldn’t work again due to the ‘morning and afternoon’ session arrangements in Lagos schools, he employed a family driver to take care of that.

He was a no-nonsense man, and disciplinarian to the core. I still wonder how outsiders revered him, such kind words and sincere admiration about him to the point I had sometimes asked myself if we all knew that same man who flogged nonsense and ingredients out of me, same person who gave me punishments like they were routine exercises:

‘Kneel down there’, ‘Stood up by the wall’, ‘He counted 4 tiles to flog me’ and once I stepped out of the square, he started allover again even if I’d taken 11 out of 12 baddest strokes.

He was that father who never spared the rod to spoil a child, and secretly, I wanted to ‘hate’ him in a way . Lol – Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, I felt he was mean and heartless meting out those treatments mehnnnn. Maybe he wasn’t even my father, I’d once told myself . . . His attitude was that of:

‘My children are not my friend . . . ‘

As a kid, I was tough, but my father was tougher – With the passage of time, I came to realise he loved each and everyone of us, his style was only just different . . . ‘Tough LOVE’

To think things have since changed, such acts nowadays by parents to their wards, have since been labelled ‘child-abuse’, I mean, correcting your kid is no longer at your discretion oooo. The Africaness in our parents have since gone out of fashion and through the window, with a vast majority of us having adopted the American and European styles of upbringing for our children, unfortunately they’ve all become so spoilt and rotten from over pampering, they’ve become equals with us and ‘have a say’ in their upbringing. Not so bad an idea, though, but when a child who is inexperienced and immature about life dictates and showcases their whims and caprices, then all have been thrown to the dogs.

E don finish be that ke . . .

People seat down on a roundtable nowadays to draw agreements with their children, a ‘to-do and not-to-do’ list. There are families of 3 kids, where what everyone of them eats; breakfast, lunch and dinner is different from one another – Where this one wants oats, another wants cornflakes, while the other wants bread and butter, etc. Reminds me of when we were young, and all of us hated porridge beans with the ‘kokoro’ (insects) but still had to eat it . Yuck 🤮 🤮 🤮 

Usually, I watch from behind my windows how my neighbours ‘spoil’ their kids nowadays – A particular neighbour who has a driver and I’ll watch as one of the kids, a girl who was a prefect is quickly taken early to school, leaving behind the boy and last child, a girl. Driver drops the girl at school, 4 streets away, and comes back to pick the other two (You dare not try that with my Dad – I bet he would’ve made you walk to school, especially that it’s only 4 streets away) . Same applies to when they’re going to Church on Sundays, Dad and Mum, already seated and waiting in the car for the kids to turn up. As in what the f.ck ?

As a matter of fact, it’s my old man that locked his doors, and not his wife, talkless of the children, meaning you all must be up to speed with him.

I often joke with my neighbour’s wife about how they make their kids get away with ‘blue murder’ and she’ll be like, their Dad is ‘Baba Jeje’, (gentleman), while the kids see her as the toughie, so she sometimes just relaxes and chill out for them.

So, on this particular Sunday, my neighbour already in his suv, waiting outside the gate with his last child, the girl, then their Mum joined, and followed by the first girl – And he reversed, and drove off, the gate still wide open, unlocked, me furiously watching that, what the heck – How could they have left without locking the gate ?

I thought of putting a call to him, did he forget or what ? I was still trying to figure it all out, when like 3 minutes later, their only boy came dashing out to the gate, panting, his shoes still in his hands (Chuckles) . He had been thrown under the bus, and left hanging. (A lesson about timeliness and punctuality)

The family had gone to Church without him, a first and obvious lesson in ‘tough love’ and I bet as he stood there, lost in thought, what was going on in his little mind, wouldn’t have been anything less than:

‘I hate you Dad . . . ‘

✋️ 😆 🤚 

@ O’Shine Original . . . 

Raise your hand if a woman has falsely accused you before – My God !

*

We were quite close friends till she spewed the utter garbage about me – Ahhhhhhhhhh, it was a huge shock to my system, too. Absolutely blatant lies, entirely tommy rot and nonsense. 

Character assassination, yo say the very least.

To think she never could even accuse me to my face, but had to go tell the exact same person that she had in past months reported to me as her ‘enemy’. It was from that source I eventually knew why she had drifted away from me and funnily, her enemy’s prayers had been answered cos she had all along been very uncomfortable with our friendship. 

I mean, it was strange that I had become ‘cat and mouse’ with her flatmate. Something she totally frowned at, but had no control over – So, you can imagine her joy when the bubble bursted between us: 

‘Olorun mu yiin . . . ‘ (God catch you) she said delightedly and happily.

I still vividly remember my late Mum saying to me severally during her time around here:

‘Obirin – wan se sa fuun, wan se duro de . . . ‘ (Women – you can’t run from them and you can’t wait for them)

Truth is a number of them are evil, while some are equally angels – As it is, a stunning percentage are demons pretending to be angels in reality.

It is not low-key alarming. It is indeed, high-key terrifying.

And that fellas, is how good a woman can be with falsehood, almost flawless . . . Mind you, just because she cries doesn’t mean she’s telling the truth.

I believe women like I believe the CNN. Like I said, the devil taught the woman so much before Adam came to meet with her again, and she begot Abel after Cain.

Yessss – Some of them tell too many lies, it must be instinctual. To these particular ones, their acting is just pure evil. They tell too many lies, laced with their famous crocodile tears, believe them at your own damn risk, and there should be repercussions for false accusations. Falsehood that have sometimes led people behind bars or even sent them to their untimely death and graves.

I don’t just love it when they shed those crocodile tears, but I also get amused by them. Them weeping when you’re the one who should be sobing your sockets out – Blatant falsehood from professional manipulators, the ‘weaker sex’ my foot . . . I guess that’s just a hype.

Kikikikikikikikikikiiiiiiiiii. 

‘Snakes’ have been said to be saints compared to certain women – Any wonder the joke around here:

‘In a dangerous spot, if you see a snake and a woman – Strike down the woman first . . . ‘

And so, the Oscar goes to … That: 

Woman ! 

😆 😂 😆 

@ O’Shine Original . . .