Journey through these times
August 1 2015 By Abi Giwa
August 1, 1983, is one of the most important dates in my life. The day is even more important than my own birthday. It was on this day 32 years ago that I had my first child. Prior to the birth of the baby boy, who is today a man, a husband and a father, I looked at my pregnant wife and felt joyful, sensing that I had the capability to make children and that I was to become a father.
The depth of thoughts in my mind was unknown to my wife. Hardly did she knew the intense happiness I felt the day she gave me my first bundle of joy, leaving her on the hospital bed, walking the streets back to my house to go and bring provisions, and enveloped with unspeakable joy. I felt like I had conquered the world. It was the beginning of my conquests.
I had everything in place for the baby's arrival. I worked in the Daily Times where we had one of the best medical support. Doctors at Mayomi Hospital gave a good attention to my expectant wife. She was registered to have the baby at a hospital on Ayilara Street, off Ojuelegba, far away from where we lived in Iju area of Agege. She arrived in the hospital the evening of the last day of July, ready to have her child. God led the journey and I followed, being a new-comer to the enterprise of baby making.
The nurses asked me to return home and to come back the following morning. I arrived home but still uncertain that I would be numbered among men called father. It was the beginning of my August 1 story. I slept through the night and like it was like I was almost unable to sleep. I knew I had a father. I saw men around me called fathers. But it was still a miracle to me that I was about to join the fatherhood club.
The thoughts in my mind was that I was unprepared for it. My eldest brother, Dele, and my mother, had both received my wife, because according to them, I wasn't the type who played around with women. Moreover, everyone said she was pleasant and good-looking. My brother had expected me to prepare to go to school and not having a wife, because I had missed the opportunity for education due to our parents' lack of means for school fees payment.
Coming from poor parents was a common sin by every child from a poor home, and the punishment was the country's lack of plans for your group. You have to work extremely hard to make something out of nothing. As I lay on my bed through the night, the thoughts ran in mind how I was going to take care of myself, a wife and a child, with my meager income from the Daily Times.
The thought remained in my mind, when I arrived in the hospital the following morning to the herald of information that my wife had a baby boy. I was eclipsed by unexplainable ecstasy. A baby boy for me? Beyond the question is that I have become a father. I left the he hospital with a song in my heart; a song about becoming a father and demonstration of capability that I am a man; despite my country's decision to conserve me to nothingness,due to the circumstances of my birth.
Having my first child on August 1, 32 years ago, at the age of 28, was my first act to rub off the mark of Jabez in my life, as one act of humanity that Nigerian leaders are incapable of depriving the poor. It is about the truth that leadership in Nigeria is not about how to provide for the people, but how leaders will provide for themselves, the tribesmen and cronies, and building senseless mansions, acquiring useless automobiles to fill their garage, marrying numberless wives and having concubines in all nooks and crannies of the country.
It is unknown to these leaders that the best investment in life is educating young people, irrespective of their parental background and life's circumstances. I remember in 1972, when my brother made an application for scholarship to the Midwest Government for me, because he couldn't meet up paying my fees, while at the same time taking care of his own needs, and the government rejected my application because they were blind and couldn't see my parents were poor or that the scholarship placement was reserved for children of the rich.
To God be the glory for all I have since August 1,1983. He is the one who has been taking care of my needs, like he does to all indigents, who are like cows without a tail, and by His grace, flies which would have been troubling to their existence, are ward off. I cannot claim there have not been men whom God had used as vehicles to achieve his purpose. I remember a wonderful Nigerian, who put his money on me 13 years ago, for me to leave Nigeria and avoid me falling a victim to my brother's seemingly faceless murderers.
The depth of thoughts in my mind was unknown to my wife. Hardly did she knew the intense happiness I felt the day she gave me my first bundle of joy, leaving her on the hospital bed, walking the streets back to my house to go and bring provisions, and enveloped with unspeakable joy. I felt like I had conquered the world. It was the beginning of my conquests.
I had everything in place for the baby's arrival. I worked in the Daily Times where we had one of the best medical support. Doctors at Mayomi Hospital gave a good attention to my expectant wife. She was registered to have the baby at a hospital on Ayilara Street, off Ojuelegba, far away from where we lived in Iju area of Agege. She arrived in the hospital the evening of the last day of July, ready to have her child. God led the journey and I followed, being a new-comer to the enterprise of baby making.
The nurses asked me to return home and to come back the following morning. I arrived home but still uncertain that I would be numbered among men called father. It was the beginning of my August 1 story. I slept through the night and like it was like I was almost unable to sleep. I knew I had a father. I saw men around me called fathers. But it was still a miracle to me that I was about to join the fatherhood club.
The thoughts in my mind was that I was unprepared for it. My eldest brother, Dele, and my mother, had both received my wife, because according to them, I wasn't the type who played around with women. Moreover, everyone said she was pleasant and good-looking. My brother had expected me to prepare to go to school and not having a wife, because I had missed the opportunity for education due to our parents' lack of means for school fees payment.
Coming from poor parents was a common sin by every child from a poor home, and the punishment was the country's lack of plans for your group. You have to work extremely hard to make something out of nothing. As I lay on my bed through the night, the thoughts ran in mind how I was going to take care of myself, a wife and a child, with my meager income from the Daily Times.
The thought remained in my mind, when I arrived in the hospital the following morning to the herald of information that my wife had a baby boy. I was eclipsed by unexplainable ecstasy. A baby boy for me? Beyond the question is that I have become a father. I left the he hospital with a song in my heart; a song about becoming a father and demonstration of capability that I am a man; despite my country's decision to conserve me to nothingness,due to the circumstances of my birth.
Having my first child on August 1, 32 years ago, at the age of 28, was my first act to rub off the mark of Jabez in my life, as one act of humanity that Nigerian leaders are incapable of depriving the poor. It is about the truth that leadership in Nigeria is not about how to provide for the people, but how leaders will provide for themselves, the tribesmen and cronies, and building senseless mansions, acquiring useless automobiles to fill their garage, marrying numberless wives and having concubines in all nooks and crannies of the country.
It is unknown to these leaders that the best investment in life is educating young people, irrespective of their parental background and life's circumstances. I remember in 1972, when my brother made an application for scholarship to the Midwest Government for me, because he couldn't meet up paying my fees, while at the same time taking care of his own needs, and the government rejected my application because they were blind and couldn't see my parents were poor or that the scholarship placement was reserved for children of the rich.
To God be the glory for all I have since August 1,1983. He is the one who has been taking care of my needs, like he does to all indigents, who are like cows without a tail, and by His grace, flies which would have been troubling to their existence, are ward off. I cannot claim there have not been men whom God had used as vehicles to achieve his purpose. I remember a wonderful Nigerian, who put his money on me 13 years ago, for me to leave Nigeria and avoid me falling a victim to my brother's seemingly faceless murderers.
