J.O.K
There’s a rather funny story my dad once told me that has stayed with me. His father — Seriki Tugbobo — the larger than life patriarch of the Fawehinmi family and my grandfather, used to keep a mysterious looking bottle on a cupboard in the house. He warned his children never to go near it. But young boys will do what young boys do so one day my dad, with a little help from one of his brothers, climbed the cupboard, took the bottle, and took a sip or two from it.
It turned out to be some kind of powerful aphrodisiac and my dad (he claims) ended up with a permanent and painful erection. Tugbobo got back later in the day from his business and saw his wife (my dad’s mother) nursing my crying dad. He (Tugbobo) immediately knew what had happened and proceeded in silence to prepare to eat his food without saying a word to my dad. He took all the time in the world, picked his teeth and relaxed his legs. Eventually, he went to get something from somewhere else and handed it to my dad to drink. Like magic, the painful erection disappeared and Tugbobo delivered a short lecture about why you should never drink things you have been expressly told not to drink.
I had a complicated relationship with my father. Or maybe that’s just a fancy way of saying it was the norm and not the exception to what father-son relationships of a certain vintage might be expected to be. Just like Tugbobo used silence and sternness to get his message across, my dad often used the same methods with me. We never got as close as we could or should have and many things that might be expected to happen in a father-son relationship never quite happened between us.
But 4 years ago, when my father-in-law died and we went to bury him in Ondo, my dad showed up for me in a way that touched me. Some people have the luxury of taking things like that for granted but to me he had made an effort in a way that I did not recall him ever doing. And so, I can probably say the last 4 years were the best years of our relationship (he similarly showed up for my younger brother a couple of years later when he had an engagement with his in-laws in Abuja).
Add to that the constant hammering from my mother that we should never hold a grudge against him for anything. It’s a powerful message coming from the person who probably had the biggest reason to hold a grudge against him if she wanted to.
I came to sympathise with who he was and how he became that person. My dad was a twin. But having twin boys in 1932 — the year he was born — in Ondo is not what it is today. By nothing other than pure luck, my dad’s life was spared and Taiwo was sacrificed because back then having twin boys was seen as something terrible and one had to go. I never forget that I am here today because of that capricious lottery and that he got the name ‘Olusegun’ on account of that (funny). I often wonder if my dad adopted the J.O.K initials — most of his brothers used 2 initials — to remind himself of his luck. My mum said he wanted to give me Adesanya as my middle name until she protested and pleaded that whatever suffering he had seen in life, there was no need to be reminded of it, even if unwittingly, through your own son. She won the argument.
His mother, Nimota Bolaji, never recovered from the terrible thing of having one of her sons forcefully yanked away from her and for all the years I knew her, was always talking to herself loudly. My dad ended up being her only son. He had an older sister, Humuani (‘Hunmu’), and 2 younger ones — Falilat Adunni (‘Fali’) and Nuratu Abeni (pronounced Nu’atu without the R). I sensed that being the only boy in between 4 women was something that never quite worked to his advantage.
His mother of course was not the only wife of his father so he was always competing for affection with his sisters (he seemed to be a painful reminder to his mother of what she had suffered) and his numerous other half-brothers. Some of them he got along really well with while the others were always on the receiving end of his caustic wit.
There was Waheed Folarinle who was one of his favourites and also one of my favourites (I borrowed his name for my son). Tugbobo was unlettered and so was Nimota Bolaji and his other wives. My dad and his brothers thus had to manufacture their own birth dates when they got education . My dad chose 31st May. And as a mark of their closeness, Waheed chose 30th May.
There was Rasheed Olawale (‘Justice’) with whom he had an ‘interesting’ relationship to put it mildy. There was H.O (I do not know what those initials stand for till this day)who always had a glint in his eye like he was up to some mischief. My dad never stopped calling him ‘OC Awoof’ and was always reminding anyone who cared to listen that when H.O. was drafted to the war front in Europe for WW2, he got there and upon seeing how fierce the battle was, feigned a leg injury and was then moved to some office duty. Nevertheless, in that short stint, he managed to meet a Swedish (or was she Finnish now?) woman and got her pregnant. H.O. was funny as hell and was also a twin but in his case, his twin was a girl — Y’em Taiwo (when we lived in Kaduna, she was forever sending us messages to bring back ‘camel leg’ or ‘ese rakumi’ whenever we were coming down south. Apparently it was very tasty)— and so they were both spared. Caprice.
There was of course Ganiyu Oyesola who had a relationship of mutual respect with all his brothers but was fiercely independent and had his own mind. Over the last couple of decades all his brothers and sisters seemed to die one after the other.
I have never known my dad to be ill all of my life. I cannot remember him having to go to hospital for anything. Not once. My mum also could not remember a single illness that laid him low or required a hospital visit. He drank his beer and brandy liberally without ever seeming to get drunk (at least not to my sight). I never knew him do anything that might even remotely be called exercise but he always seemed to be fit and never once had weight issues.
Last year he began to struggle with reading his WhatsApp messages as his eyesight started to wane. But we still chatted up until February this year if only intermittently. And we spoke on the phone now and again. His hearing also began to struggle but nothing a little shouting and repeating didn’t solve during a phone call.
Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee
I imagine each death of his brothers and sisters — to say nothing of some of his close friends — took something from him. But he bore it well, at least as far as I could tell.
But in December, Alhaji Khaleel Fawehinmi, the Seriki Musulumi of Ondo — the title my grandfather had held (Tugbobo was originally a Christian but getting no recognition he thought he deserved from the church, he crossed from Manchester United to Manchester City as it were and became a Muslim) — died in America. He had not told my dad how ill he was or that he was going to America for medical treatment. He simply told him he would be back in a few weeks and that was the last time my dad saw him.
The death of his beloved nephew devastated my dad. Over the last few years, my dad had been handing over all the family heirloom and responsibilities to Khaleel. And then death, joyless as ever, took him away.
Not long after, my dad came down with ‘malaria’ and landed in hospital. He lost all the weight it was possible to lose. He could no longer talk properly. He could hardly hear. But worst of all, my dad — a proud Ondo man who, for all his imperfections, always took care of himself — became completely reliant on other people for his most basic needs. To rub salt on an open wound, he could no longer drink his brandy or any alcohol for that matter. In June we had to get him a wheelchair and hired a dedicated carer for him.
When I visited Ondo in July, I knew I was seeing him for the last time. I saw a man who was seemingly irritated at death taking too much time to do its worst. He hardly spoke anymore. He did not want to get better. He wanted to go. Jubril, after 89 years on this sinful earth, had seen enough.
As I made to leave, he grabbed my hand, kissed the back of it and for a brief moment, I saw that mischievous glint in his eyes again. A reminder that a Jubril that was not funny, laughing loudly and infecting everyone around him with his laughter and deploying his caustic wit against an endless array of targets was no Jubril at all.
I am terrible at keeping up with friends and family. Answering calls, never mind returning them, is so hard for me. It is something I am constantly trying to be better at. But maybe making the trek down to Ondo in July is one of the better things I have done in this regard. To see the old boy one last time.
Regrets? I have a few. I wish I did not stay away from Nigeria for 3 years and went to do the recording I wanted to do with him about his life. What did he see growing up? How was it living under colonialism and then independence in Nigeria? What really was the relationship he had with his dad and mum? What were the defining events of his life? I kept putting off that trip and in the end I left it too late. I will never know him like I could have. I can only implore you, dear reader, not to make this mistake.
Omo Alujannu!
Ogbose l’ogunmole
Ari igbodowi
O jeungbogbolilelile
O laun ha ha gbokunrigwin
O ja li liliboti e
O ja molokodiodio
Alujannu de!
Ma ba ja, ma ba re
A tapa nisau
Jubril Olusegun Kehinde, Lekian Osukusaka Okedasa, I hope that your transition is peaceful and pray that you find eternal rest. The battles of this life are endless and so death is the perfect state of being.
See you around.
FF
