A MOTHER TILL HER LAST BREATH
I thank God for giving me Mama Alice Olanike Asabi for a mother. Her passion for education, although she was at that time illiterate, was legendary among the Yoruba community in Berekum where we lived. Every time I recall her struggles to raise money to support our dad’s efforts to educate us, I wonder why she understood so well the importance of education and committed all her energies to ensuring that we could stay in school no matter the economic circumstances of our family. No sacrifice was too much for her to make to ensure her children were trained. As a typical Yoruba trader in Ghana, she was an itinerant household commodities’ seller who carried her goods on her head from village to village to sell. Mama traversed several villages every other day, sometimes trekking twenty kilometres to villages around Berekum the town in which we lived. She made the rounds of Pepaase, Akroforo, Kotaa, Domeabra, Ampenkro, Mpatasie, Tewbabi, Abisase, Koraso, Adom, Jamdede, Domfete, Jinijini, Fetentaa, Ayinasu, Botokrom, Nsapo, Amomaso, Nanasuano, Benkasa, Biadan, Senasua, Kato, Namasua, Kutre and Mpatapo often alone, sometimes with a baby on her back and occasionally accompanied on Saturdays by any child with strong enough legs to endure the round.
I owed her more than I could repay for her role in my education. In 1967 when I finished Teacher Training College and was employed as a teacher, as was the norm among Nigerians in Ghana, my dad should have brought me to Nigeria (Ogbomoso!) to marry so that I would not marry a Ghanaian and become a permanent resident in Ghana. When I declined and declared my intention to further my education, my mother embraced my decision with such passion that our dad fenced off his friends who were putting pressure on him to follow the tradition they knew.
I was just a couple of months into my undergraduate programme at the University of Ghana when in 1969, Nigerians in Ghana woke up one morning to the news that they had become aliens and had to obtain inaccessible residents’ permits within a few weeks to continue to stay. I returned home to discuss with mum and dad what to do. Dad was so incensed by what he considered an insult that he sold off his house cheaply to return to Nigeria with his family. Mama did not want my dream of higher education to perish through any unfortunate policy. Her only concern was how I would survive alone in Ghana. Her vision, courage and ambition for me to succeed influenced my decision to stay to complete my education and the attitude of the rest of the family to accept that it was the best response to the sudden adversity of unplanned relocation to Nigeria.
Mama taught me lessons in loyalty to family, friends and place of origin. Her behaviour spoke eloquently to the need for loyalty to family. Even though our dad died in 1971 when she was only 55 years old, she refused to remarry, seeing her duty to lie in raising her children in the way her very strong-willed and adorable husband (Jacob Moronkeji Ajamu Olaniyan) would have done had he lived longer. She also refused to leave the family home, even though she could have lived in greater comfort with any of her children, because she thought we would be estranged from our roots. As she often reminded us, the family home was where we all belonged and it was her duty not let us forget that. Mama never tired of reminding us of our dad’s definition of family as comprising all kinspersons. So any money sent to her for her upkeep had to be shared with needy family members and friends. It took some time before I realized this and after I did we had an understanding that she would tell me specifically those who needed support so that I could provide for them separately. Usually, we just agreed on what needed to be done and did it since I did not know those kinspersons. I am grateful to Mama for teaching me to give anonymously.
Through her refusing to leave home to live with any child, she made me travel to Ogbomoso very often and inculcated in me patriotic zeal towards the development of Ogbomoso. This has brought me into contact with many Ogbomoso indigenes who also share the same passion and helped to root me firmly to a place in Nigeria. It was also Mama’s influence and wish that led to Olumide, my son, selecting Federal Government College, Ogbomoso for his secondary education.
Mama desired education not just for her children but for herself as well. She learnt to read and write in Yoruba and honed her literacy skills reading the Bible. A highly intelligent person, Mama became Sunday School teacher in her 70s and that became additional, more powerful reason she could not leave Ogbomoso for more than a week or so at a time. When her vision began to fade and prescribed lenses were inadequate for her to read the Bible, her lamentation stopped only when I gave her magnifying glasses to read with. When she found there often was no electricity supply to enable her read in the night, I gave her another one with embedded battery-powered light. Mama rewarded me abundantly spiritually. After Akin gave her a mobile phone, most of our conversations ended with Mama reminding me to stop drinking alcohol and to hold on to the Cross of Jesus. Every Sunday she would call to ask whether I went to Church or not and remind me about Jesus Christ and his work of salvation.
It did not surprise me at all how Mama spent her last moments on earth. She prayed for each child separately by name and left a message for her children collectively. She left me with sweet, fond and precious memories that I will cherish forever. To her last breath, SHE WAS A MOTHER.
