Endurance and Perseverance Culture Is Killing Women before Their Time.
The story that changed everything!
Dear @trevor_uu,
As I think of this tweet and how to tell this story or even how to begin it, many ways of how it would have been different crossed my mind but this is not my story, this is not about me. This is the story of my mother Owolabi Omolara, this is a story of a seemingly strong woman, that gave it all for my younger brother and I.
True to her name, she was born into true wealth. Her family were the controllers of Ibadan and even her father, my “not so” grandfather was the Otunba of the Ibadan kingdom ( the second in place to the king). All my uncles and aunties from my mothers side had their education abroad mostly turning out to be doctors,lawyers and all, but to the best of my understanding, my grandfather disowned my mother when she insisted on marring my father who was a stark pauper and calling him son of a nobody, was a great understatement. They went against every rule and eloped. My mother used her allowance and money contributed by her brothers and sisters to make sure my father finishes his education, thereby sabotaging her own education in the process, hence my mother was not too educated, she stopped after the 6th grade. After father finished from the university of Nigeria, he got a job at the newly established international institute of tropical agriculture ( IITA) and due to factors relating to my mothers’ influence and also because of the civil war at the time, my father got promoted to a managerial post with much perks, lets just say he got into money also.
I was born in 1972, just 2 years after the Nigerian civil war. My brother James came 2 years after. We had good education and all and moved to the best community father’s salary could afford, my mother was a trader in the popular Gbagi market ( a popular market in Ibadan).
I was in my last year in grammar school ( high school) when the woes started. My father had been caught embezzling some government funds and had been charged to court. He pleaded guilty and luckily had to pay a sum that was hurriedly gathered by my mom. After he lost his job, he became a different person, he started drinking and became grossly irresponsible, some times I would hear my mother crying in her room but I couldn’t do anything about it. Before my maternal grandmother died, she occasionally visited and I would hear her tell my mother that unless she wants to be viewed as a worthless, shameless woman, she can leave my father, otherwise she has to buckle up and carry her own baggage. More and more my father regressed. My mother became everything, the doctor, the nurse, the father, the mother, to everyone in the house, and also the sole provider for the family.
In 1991, I got admitted into the university of Ibadan, the burden and the fees became even higher. In my second year in the school, it happened. My father got another woman pregnant, you know what they say “men are scum”. My mother begged him and even told him to stay in the house with the new woman, whom he later got married to, but he refused claiming that since he had not gotten married to my mother because of the fact that my maternal grandfather forbids it, he must get married before he dies. Well, that was how he left.
In 1995, I was in my 4th year in school, when the legendary Gbagi market fire happened. In that fire my mother lost her livelihood, she began to do menial work for people up and down, she fetched water for anyone willing to pay, she begged for food and money, it was in those years that I came to know that my father got a loan of 500 thousand Naira ( a huge money at that time) with my mother’s name and my mother has been paying for a long time. In a short while, the banks took all our properties, I was barely making my fee payments, I had to move my brother and my mother to my hostel room, thanks to the kind heart of my room mate who was willing to pay fully for the room. My mother started selling firewood, she would carry them from Mokola down to Dugbe everyday, just to get money for payment of our school fees. She did it all, she was the literal definition of the picture of a woman, shielding her children while been stabbed. I had a job as a bartender but it wasn’t really bringing any money at that. During my project year, she had cancer. She slowly started going, in my very presence she started dying, my brother had just gotten into university of Lagos too, and all of us were struggling to survive not to even talk of having payment for hospital treatment, she even kept the cancer a secret till she almost died and when her hair was falling, she played it off as menopause and nature having her way. I should have known better! Two days, before I graduated from university as a first class student, where I was immediately employed and given a scholarship to any country of my choice for my masters degree and a very fat cheque. She died, I stared into her live less body and I knew she was gone. For ever.
Many women play the strong, independent, brave and bold woman, that is able to overcome what society throws at her (them). NO! That is just a social construct and I wouldn’t want to criticize my mother but there were many things she would have done differently and would probably still be alive till now. The society should start seeing women as human beings also, and not as some societal robot that has been wired to never be shameful and never be bothered by anything. Women cries too, not as a sign of weakness but its just normal humanity. Well, as for my scumbag of a father, he died just 2 years ago in 2018, though I paid for his burial and all, inside of me, I wished he had died a terrible death or had died in place of my mother, but I can’t stay angry with the dead. Karma has done justice already.
I am John and I am calling for equality in women, I am telling anyone who cares to listen, that endurance & perseverance culture in Africa is killing women before their time. I hope you join me.
