WHEN next or whenever you are in Lagos, drive down Lekki-Epe express road. Do it between 5.30 am and 6.00 am. It is a good time to see the other side of that axis. Slow down, drive intentionally slow from Igbo-Efon to Jakande intersection. Watch the median, the road sides. You will see them in different sleeping positions, covered in dust, dirty and oblivious of the honks and horns of the cars rushing their occupants to work. Those not sprawled in the dust, even at that time of the day, are rolling and wrapping dangerous weeds in brown paper to smoke. Then around Eleganza and Chevron, you are likely to find about six taking advantage of the slow-moving traffic to wash cars that are in motion. Those who are not attempting to wash the whole cars are cleaning windscreens.
They are all boys. Hustling. Smoking. Running up and down a traffic snarl, trying to make money the only way they could think of. My eyes welled up with tears the day I saw them washing cars in the early morning rain. They were wet. They struggled not to be run over or get pinned in between vehicles struggling to beat traffic light. Some drivers of the washed cars hissed and shouted at them, refusing to part with even 500 naira. But the boys just shrugged their wet shoulders and shivered towards the next car.
These boys, I asked myself, are they not some people’s sons? Did some men not impregnate their mothers? Is it their fault that they were born into homes of the poor and or uncaring? Why do we have so many young boys sleeping in the open, in uncompleted buildings in our major towns and cities? Why are more and more young men taking to crime and social vices? They are wrapping and smoking ‘kolo’ in the open, under street lights, in full glare of security cameras and operatives. Who are their fathers? Where are their fathers?
Fast forward to 20 years later. One of those boys has struggled and beaten all the odds stacked against him. His traffic car wash has become a real car wash, then an in-door game centre and then a second-hand car shop. Or perhaps a talent hunter stumbled on him singing to express his pain while doing a menial job and one good thing led to another great one and he ‘blew’ and blossomed into a star. Or a stagehand somehow got to stand in for a missing actor and became an A-List. And then his ‘missing’ mother or father shows up to claim his or natural bragging rights. The child dusts him off or writes her off. Because we are a race of pretenders, the first group of people who would speak up for the wannabe daddy-of-celebrity most likely would be one of those car owners who hissed and screamed at the ‘celebrity’ when he was a homeless hustler.
She is the one who poured blood on your head.
He is the vehicle that brought you into the world.
She must not curse you o.
Your father is your father, there is nothing you can do about it.
Really? Seriously? There is nothing an abandoned child can do? He has no feelings, no right to be angry, no right to want to be left alone, no right to decide what to do with his money? Where is that written in our laws or the holy books? The Bible says honour your father and mother that your days may be long. Does that exclude the father or mother from doing their God-given assignments in their lives and expecting there will be no consequences later in life? That same Bible says parents should not provoke their children.
So, is this about music superstar, Asake (Ahmed Ololade) and his estranged father? Yes and No. it is a metaphor for all absentee parents who show up when the soup is cooked and served. Do I believe Asake’s father deserves better? In the same way that I find it difficult to believe that a child will abandon the father that ‘single handedly’ raised him, yes. Sure, Mr Fatai Odunsi is entitled to the full benefits of being a celebrity’s father but what is not totally clear is the full story behind the parting of ways. However, like I stated earlier, whatever the background story leading to the social media drama is, the focus here is all mothers, all fathers should brace up for later-in-life reactions to the actions they full-chested took in the morning of their lives.
A mother who moves out of her matrimonial home and leaves three young children behind to fend for themselves or to be cared for by their father who is not wired or equipped to combine all the duties he suddenly finds in his lap, must brace up for the judgment of those children eventually. A man who leaves the mother of his children to do all the heavy lifting while he moves in with a side chic or moves in a hostile second wife should not go to social media to shed tears later.
Those children have feelings. They can see. They suffered. If they watched their peers whose parents didn’t ‘abandon’ eat at least twice a day while they laid on their stomachs many nights, unable to sleep because of hunger, they are not likely to forgive or forget. Did they end up on the streets because their father could not make rent? Will they forget their days in the scorching sun and nights in the cold rain, being chased like dogs off the porch of shops or offices? A son who could not write WASCE because his parents could not meet WAEC deadline for payment and ended up an apprentice tailor or chin-chin hawker in traffic will always feel shortchanged by life each time he sees his mates and friends post-graduation photos on the social media.
There are fathers who struggle, who really want to do more but life happens to them and they are unable. Their children know. They do not hold it against them. Children whose fathers are capable but refuse to enable their children are in a special class, a class of retribution and bad harvest. Tomorrow is not far. It will bring them ‘fruits of their labour’ too because you cannot legislate love or forgiveness.
READ ALSO: VIDEO: ‘My father wants to cajole me’ — Asake reacts to claims of neglecting ailing dad
and then