I had always wondered why my father wanted me to sit on the floor, sometimes between his legs, very early in the morning while adjudicating family disputes. I realised later in life that it was part of my domestic education. On several occasions, I had recalled my father’s intervention in one particular domestic dispute I witnessed.
It was around 5am some day in 1954, when Chief Odogun, as he was popularly known in our village, knocked on our door. He had come to report his recalcitrant son, Ilemobayo, to my father. It was customary for villagers to come very early to our house to seek my father’s advice or intervention. Catching my father early was necessary before he set out for work on the cocoa farm. He often returned from the farm around 5pm, by which time he would be tired and no one would like to bother him with their family problems.
On the occasion in question, Chief Odogun, a wealthy cocoa farmer, had come to report his son, who was a serial troublemaker in the family and throughout the village. Ilemobayo once sold his father’s car without his knowledge and squandered the money. Worse still, he sold one of his father’s lucrative cocoa farms as well. According to Chief Odogun, he had forgiven him about the car. But he wanted back his cocoa farm and wanted his son to leave his house and indeed the village. He had come to seek my father’s cooperation.
My father’s advice was two-fold. One, Chief Odogun should regard the car and the cocoa farm as Ilemobayo’s inheritance, and forget about them. Two, Ilemobayo should not be driven out of the house. He should stay there until he was ready to leave. My father then added these words (uttered, of course, in the local Idanre dialect): “You do not drive the Troublemaker out of the house. When Trouble knocks on the door at midnight, Troublemaker would be the one to open the door. When Troublemaker pushes Trouble out on the street, another family member can then lock the door. The rest of the family can go back to sleep as Trouble and Troublemaker face each other on the street”.
Recently, a popular Funeral Director in Ondo State told me a variation of this story. He and his convoy of funeral service providers, including a hearse and an ambulance, both inscribed with his company logo, appeared at a mortuary to prepare a body for burial. A middle-aged man approached him, questioning him over his delayed appearance. Perplexed, Ade explained to him that he was in fact five hours early for the wake scheduled for 5pm at Akure.
It turned out that the man who approached the Funeral Director had come from London to bury his mother, whose body was also at the Akure mortuary. He had put his own younger brother in charge. The younger brother had told him that JADEX Funeral Services had been paid N1m for its undertaking services.
The truth was that the young man had swindled his own brother out of the money for their mother’s burial. He had employed a much cheaper local undertaker in Owo, whose vehicle broke down on the day of the wake and so could not pick up the body from Akure.
At the end of the day, Londoner appealed to Ade to rescue him. Ade agreed and charged him much less than half the money his younger brother claimed he had paid to JADEX. Ade was able to do the job because his company has numerous elegant coffins, hearses, ambulances, and funeral assistants ready at all times.
The third story is about a hardworking young Nigerian in the United States, who had saved enough money to build a house in Nigeria so he could have a place to stay whenever he visited home. He chose one of the new developments on the outskirts of Lagos on the border with Ogun State.
A friend of his in Nigeria had helped him to secure a plot of land next to one that was already being built up. He came home to see the plot and employed the same architect, who worked on the project next door. He adopted the same drawings and put his Nigerian brother in charge of the supervision of the construction.
The American brother went back, confident that his own brother would do the right thing. He was sending money to his Nigerian brother, who was sending pictures of the house to him as the construction progressed. In the meantime, the American brother started the purchase of furniture and appropriate hardware for the house. When he thought he had all the furniture and equipment necessary, he shipped them in a container to Nigeria. Once he was assured the container had arrived Lagos Port, he decided to come to Nigeria. In the meantime, he had sent all necessary papers to his Nigerian brother to start processing the clearance of the cargo.
Since he was self-employed in the US, he had planned to stay long enough to supervise the finishing of his house. By now, according to the pictures he received, the house had been plastered and roofed. Even his wife, who never trusted her husband’s brother, thought that the young man had redeemed himself. Her scepticism was based on a previous experience: The Nigerian brother had sold his brother’s car in Nigeria under the pretext that the car was stolen. But the matter was settled between the brothers.
This time round, there appeared to be no cause for suspicion. So, the American brother called the Nigerian brother to arrange to pick him up at the Lagos airport on an appointed date.
But there was a slight problem he did not know about. His own house had not risen beyond foundation stage. His younger brother had been taking pictures of his neighbour’s house next door and sending them as if they were pictures of his house.
As the arrival date approached, the Nigerian brother firmed up plans to receive his American based brother. Finally, the latter called from the airport that he had landed with a lot of luggage. It was better to get a minivan to meet him at the airport. At last, the minivan arrived, with someone carrying a label with his name on it. The Nigerian brother had called that he was coming with his own car and that he would catch up with them at the airport. Minutes later, the Nigerian brother called again to confirm his car just broke down and the American brother should proceed to the hotel he had arranged for him.
He never made it to the hotel. He vanished along with the luggage and has not been seen ever since. Those who picked him up at the airport were hired assassins. His Nigerian brother would not want him to know that he had redeployed all the money he sent home to other uses, including completing his own personal house. What about the container? It was cleared alright, but the Nigerian brother sold the content, while everyone was mourning his brother’s disappearance. Months’ later, as suspicion of his culpability grew, the Nigerian brother disappeared as well.
The three stories share three features. One, there is often a Black Eye in each family, whose behaviour defies the expected norms of omolúàbí. Two, the stories bring home the Yoruba adage, Èhìnkùnlé l’òtá wà; ilé l’aseni ń gbé. Literally, it means, “The enemy is nearby; the real evil doer lives within”. The Et tu Brute situation offers a classical variation. Three, money is involved in all the stories.
Finally, the stories are a metaphor of the Nigerian condition, where the worsening of the economy is matched by a corresponding rise in cheating, corruption, killings and all kinds of malpractices. With the loss of conscience in the nation, caution is warranted.
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