Daddy, Where Are You?

I have tried for the umpteenth time to write this. But each time, my fingers turned numb avoiding the pitch blackness and doted white spots of my keyboard. Even when I had to force them to hit the keyboard, they go stubborn with numbness. My body system seemed to have collapsed, and my blood chillingly congealing.

I tell you, it’s not easy at all when that numbness overrides the ceaseless flow of blood in one’s system. No matter how hard one fights it or wishes it away, one is still going to…look stupid and unstable. I was recently tested.

Dateline was April 18, 2010. Time was 11:15pm, so I was told. The incident that was to affect my life presented itself. And I silently wept in the confines of the room. The walls shamelessly looked on, daring me to control the unabated sobs as I began mourning my father. It was barely five minutes he passed on. He left this world of nothingness in a hurry and took a long walk from its insanity to the land of no-return, to have a deserved rest. The sobs, as if they looked for an escape route, struggled to tear my ribs apart. The more I tried to control that flow, the stronger the build up became. It just poured.

Innocent Chikezie Francis Anyanwu, known by business associates as Innofrance (name on his complimentary card) or Anyanwu by his colleagues, and Dee Inno by his wife, my mum, and other close relatives, was born 65 years ago. He never had the opportunity of a tertiary education after Standard Six which he passed at Merit level. He would tell us he couldnt go any further because his elder brother who would have seen him through school died as soon as he was out of elementary school.

He later trained as a Mason. In popular parlance, he was a bricklayer. And he never hid the fact of that profession which he treasured. He would humbly and jokingly too refer to himself as a poor and struggling “Nwa Bricklayer”. But he was a classical example of a worthy father. He gladly, though painstakingly did what most of his peers felt was impossible. At a time when it was an aberration to see the children of a common labourer in the tertiary institution, dad did his best to see us through the type of education he never had.

Despite his inability to make it to a higher education, my father tasked himself on reading books and newspapers. He was my number one fan when I started my writing career. As I hit the keyboard, the flashback of how he would peruse some of the editions of the paper I had worked for are made vivid. Dad would often parade copies before his contemporaries with that little show of pride 'My son wrote this and that' he would say.

Dad was an unapologetic workaholic. He could write and read very well, in spite of his short education, thereby denying us his children the bragging right of writing his letters like most of his colleagues would get people to do for them. But he never got around to using the GSM. He never liked it, and never bothered to use any phone we bought for him.

He was a one-woman man. It was his strong beliefs in the institution of marriage that strengthened my resolve to be a good man to any lady I will decide to spend the rest of my life with, no matter what. He never raised his hand on my mum in spite of his temperament. He was the disciplinarian of my parents. He taught us the virtues of honesty, bravery and hardwork.

Just like a typical choleric, my father, and father to my other five siblings, was one of the finest, honest, straight forward, dependable, brave, fearless men this earth will always be proud to have produced. He liked being historic whenever situation called for it or when we asked questions about our clan or kinsmen. In fact, he would effortlessly reenact the history of my town, my forefathers, and what have you.

And I ask again 'Daddy, where really are you now?'. Who will tell us those stories about our clan? Who will...no need asking any more. I know he will never get to answer my simple questions.

But I can sense the knowing smile that goes with that answer. I know, just like every good man, that dad is somewhere comfortable in the bosom of the Lord.

RIP dad!

We shall try to supersede all you did.

Muammar Gaddafi might be right on Nigeria

Sshh! Don't say it! Ok. Talk, but dont talk too much. No, talk too much but not in public. That line of reasoning seems to be the trailing path for most of public office holders, and politicians in Nigeria.

When has it become atrocious to air the truth, even though truth is bitter? When has truth become so much abominable that lies and hypocrisy are preferred? Why are we now quick to cover the mouth with the palm and call for the head of the man who attempts to voice such truth? So many whys and whens. But I will pause here.

And I say again, Muammar Gaddafi the President of Libya, might be (is) right! Just being mild with language. He didn't just say what was on his mind. He said what most Nigerian leaders fear to say, at least in public. Especially those from the South East and South South regions of Nigeria.

Like many onlookers I had stood aside to watch events unfold in my dear country, Nigeria. And now I ask ,“What was Gaddafi's crime?” Let me seek recourse to history. He was recently quoted by a Libyan press to have said that the practical solution to Nigeria's unsurmountable ethno-religious crises given the sour thumb that is Jos, Plateau State was for Nigeria to split into two nations. Muslim and Christian nations. He must have offered that hand of help having seen the more than five hundred corpses that were the aftermath of the crises in Jos within three months.

Then they said he stoked the fire. He proffered that Nigeria be divided along ethnic lines rather than religion as he had earlier suggested when some angry Nigerian politicians called his suggestion the wise thinking of an insane man. In fact, the Nigerian Senate President, David Mark, dismissed Gaddafi as a madman and called on the Senate and Nigerians to ignore such verbiage from him. The press and media became inundated with comments, rejoinders, lambaste especially that coming from the Nigerian Senate.

I may be out of hearing and as such couldn't have heard much of reasoning. That is why I am still lost as to know if what Gaddafi said was out of sync. He said Nigeria should get such solution as to end the senseless bloodbath in the country, and our leaders are crying blue murder. Do our leaders really mean well for us?

Perhaps, the problem with Gaddafi's comment was that many tried to analyse the messenger rather than the message. Agreed, the Libyan leader might have raised some controversial moments in the past. This piece does not seek to resurface such moments. Doing that will be tantamount to ambushing clear-thinking.

With the benefit of clearheadedness, his comment on Nigeria cannot be said to have emerged from a controversy ridden-mind, following the March 2010 cataclysm in Jos. I may not be learned enough to know about international diplomacy, but am vehemently sure that such a diplomacy as the Great Britain would have done is covering the mouth with the palm so that truth cannot be voiced! That's what makes the difference between the US and Britain.

Let me even ask: Was what Gaddafi said about Nigeria worse than what the US report released in March 2005 said about Nigeria that the country will split before 2020 or what some of the highly respected Islamic clerics who purported to have visited and spoken with the ailing Yar'Adua in Abuja recently are saying with their body language and deceiving Nigerians? Why bring back the issue of Yar'Adua when the Acting President Goodluck Jonathan is already carving a way forward for the country. Are the clerics not insinuating that come what may, Jonathan should not be running affairs as the country's president simply because he's not from the North and certainly not a Muslim? I leave you to answer all that.